Bill C-31 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for electoral fraud or error. It requires that electors, before voting, provide one piece of government-issued photo identification showing their name and address or two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer showing their name and address, or take an oath and be vouched for by another elector.
It also amends the Canada Elections Act to, among other things, make operational changes to improve the accuracy of the National Register of Electors, facilitate voting and enhance communications with the electorate.
It amends the Public Service Employment Act to permit the Public Service Commission to make regulations to extend the maximum term of employment of casual workers.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

Bill C-31 talks about voter ID, having to produce two pieces of ID, but it also would change the permanent voters lists. It would now have your name, your address, your phone number, and your date of birth. Now, in election campaigns that I've managed--four of them now--I've had 400 volunteers. And quite often you tear off a page of the voters list and say, “Go phone these 50 people and see if they'll vote for us.” I'm wondering if all of you, as privacy experts, see it as a problem to be spreading the name, address, phone number, and date of birth of every Canadian to virtually anybody who wants it, and if that's not a recipe for identity theft.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to take advantage of some of the experience on the committee to ask a question that's a bit outside the study today. The House of Commons is currently looking at Bill C-31, amendments to the Canada Elections Act. Part of this is requiring more identification for voters when they come to the voting station—

Canada Elections Act

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act. At the outset, if the goal of the bill is to improve democracy in Canada, then that is a laudable goal.

I had the privilege of being an election observer for Canada in the first free elections in South Africa in 1994 and then again in the presidential run-off elections in Ukraine in 2004. It is with enormous pride that Canadians like myself have the opportunity to visit other countries and observe their election procedures with the goal of commenting on their fairness and democratic nature. We do that because Canada in general is known as a country with a good democratic record. Our elections are known as generally fair and democratic. If the goal of the bill is to enhance that, then it is a laudable goal.

However I fear the bill will not achieve that goal because it has some serious flaws. As a result of the identification requirements in the bill, I believe thousands of individuals will be unable to exercise their right to vote because they lack proper identification due to poverty, illness, disability, or no stable address. Homeless people, or those who are temporarily housed, or who stay in a shelter often do not have the identification that reflects their address.

My riding of Parkdale—High Park is an urban riding in the west end of Toronto. We have a large majority of renters as opposed to homeowners. There is a very high turnover in voters in the riding because of the huge number of people coming in and going out of the community. I see it all the time. We have a large number of newcomers to Canada, people who come as refugees or as landed immigrants. They stay and get their citizenship. We know from recent studies that they are disproportionately under-represented on the lists of voters. Unfortunately, we also have a large homeless population in Parkdale--High Park. I see them on the streets in Parkdale and other parts of my riding every day. We also have people with mental health issues, who unfortunately, because of a lack of government support, do not have the kind of care and supportive housing and services they definitely require.

These people do not go around with a big wallet in their back pocket with multiple pieces of ID. Many people in Parkdale struggle to get bus fare let alone photo ID. To say that, as a result of their economic circumstances, or their mental disabilities, or their newcomer status to Canada, they might be denied the opportunity to vote in an election, ought to worry all of us. I believe this will most likely be an outcome of this bill.

I firmly believe we should go back to the system of enumeration. We ought to be going door to door, finding out who is in the ridings across Canada. We ought to be signing them up and telling them what their rights are when it comes to voting. I wish this was in the bill. We tried to get it in the bill, but were not successful. We have abandoned that system in Canada, and I think that is to our detriment. It makes it harder for people to vote, especially people who already have multiple barriers before them.

So many times in an election I will talk to people on a street corner or I will go through an apartment building. For those of us in political life, we may be consumed with political life, but I will knock on people's doors or talk to them on the street and they do not even know there is an election going on. They feel so disenfranchised and powerless to be able to make a difference, and so I encourage them and tell them that they can make a difference, that every vote will count.

The last thing I would want is to have those individuals make the effort to show up to vote, in spite of working two or three part time jobs, family responsibilities, lack of child care or no transportation, and when they get to the voting registration area, they cannot vote because they do not have proper ID. This bill would disenfranchise them in that respect.

I am also concerned about the privacy elements of this bill. I do not know why we would have to have people's birth date information shared with political parties. I have a concern about that and that may well be challenged.

For me, the fundamental issue is about voter disenfranchisement. We know that south of the border, where there are similar bills and laws that have been put forward and passed, they have been challenged because of the disenfranchisement of many people. Quite frankly, it is not those of us in this room who will be disenfranchised by this bill. It is not people who are informed, who have the wherewithal to make sure that they are aware of their rights and opportunities under the law. It is the people who, through no fault of their own, are not engaged in the political process, and yet have that very basic fundamental right to democracy and the right to vote.

I believe that there is a way to achieve the goal of reducing the potential for voter fraud and extending the franchise as broadly as possible to include people who, little by little, have been dropping off the voter lists, but I do not think this bill does it. We should go back to the drawing board and bring in something that makes a better attempt to marry those two goals, but this bill does not do it.

Canada can do better. We are an example to many other parts of the world. This bill does not live up to our reputation as a model of democracy and well run elections.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act.

Coming from a northern riding in the Northwest Territories, this issue has raised a great deal of concern in my riding. It has been the subject of questions in our legislative assembly and it has raised the ire of northerners in my constituency and, I am sure, every other northern constituency across the country. These types of restrictions on voting, which we would be creating with the requirement for photo identification, would hit hardest among people in small communities across northern Canada, our aboriginal people and older people who live a simple life in many communities across the north and who may not have a driver's licence. They may have a hunting licence but that does not have a photo on it.

Once again we will see legislation that, arguably, might have some place in large urban ridings but which will have a detrimental effect on northern Canadians and Canadians in isolated communities across the country.

Many of the MPs who are from northern ridings and who represent these communities will be voting for this legislation, but I urge them not to. I urge them to stand up for their constituents and for northern Canadians and vote against the bill.

The bill represents more of the intrusive big government that Canadians never wanted and continue not to want. It represents more of the security type of provisions that we are seeing in legislation in Parliament that reflects the paranoia that has increased in our country and in other countries since 9/11. The bill stands against the roots of our democracy and will impact voters.

I have been in many tight election campaigns in my career. I remember the election campaign where the Conservatives won in my riding by one vote over a member of Parliament, Wally Firth. Many ballots were contested because many elders who had voted with clear intent had not put the X in the right spot. They did it the old way.The way one put one's X was changed 1979. People who were illiterate or who did not understand voted the wrong way and the Conservative candidate won and our candidate lost. That could happen in any riding and it could happen in any sequence.

The point is that when we change the way people are accustomed to voting things can happen. What happens when a voter who has voted in elections most of his life walks into a voting station and needs to pull out a photo ID? The person could be a hunter who just came in out of the bush and does not have any photo ID. How does that make him feel about the electoral process?

How do we think that makes people feel about the way that we are conducting business in this country? There needs to be good reasons for changing the way we allow people to exercise their fundamental franchise in this country, their right to vote for us. I truly think this is an intrusion on that.

The types of things in the bill, such as the clause 18, the sharing of birth dates with political parties, I find also quite repugnant. I go back to my grandmother who moved to this country in the early 1920s, escaping the Bolsheviks in Russia. Her whole life she would not tell anybody her birth date. My mother did not even know how old my grandmother was. We did not find out that she was 100 years old until she died and we obtained her birth certificate. She voted all her life and she was an honest, good citizen, but she was not interested in sharing her birth date with anyone.

The thought that we are making people share their birth dates with political parties, which will use it for their own particular purposes, is quite repugnant and should be repugnant to every member of Parliament in this place. We should recognize that Canadian citizens have rights to their own privacy and dignity. We must do everything to maintain those things, regardless of our interest in understanding how we can usurp their thoughts and change the way they think about voting through understanding their age and direction.

The bill deserves a great deal of contempt, and I hope I have expressed that today. I do not want to take any more of the House's time on the bill. I have said my piece and I will leave it to other members to stand on their consciences.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act, a very important piece of legislation.

Our democracy is truly the essence of how we define ourselves as a nation and as a people. We all know that the electoral process in Canada needs to be updated. Different provinces and municipalities are looking at Bill C-31.

In general, the New Democratic Party supports the effort behind Bill C-31, but our party cannot support the bill because of a number of specific clauses which we believe will eventually reduce the electoral system in terms of fairness. We believe it will eventually end in a court challenge in that the charter rights of individuals may be exposed in a very vulnerable sense. Hence, the bill could eventually be struck down.

I want to talk about how we can improve the electoral process. Also, I want to speak to the dangers in the bill. The first danger is the bill requires that before voting, an elector provide one piece of government issued photo identification showing the elector's name and address, or two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer which show the elector's name and address, or that the elector take an oath and be vouched for by another person.

The problem with that is the simple fact that persons with disabilities, the homeless and other disenfranchised voters may not have that type of ID at the time of voting or they may not be able to produce it at the time of voting and they would not be able to vote. In my constituency there are some individuals who arrive at the voting station and use other documents to prove who they are. Sometimes they produce bills from an established body, for example, Bell Canada, with other ID, such as a birth certificate. However, they may not have the photo ID required under Bill C-31. Individuals who did not have government issued ID would not be eligible to vote, despite being able to prove who they are and that they have resided at a particular address for many of years. Also individuals who have no fixed address could be left out of the system. That is very important to note.

In Windsor West, which I represent, there is a college and a university. Those institutions have individuals who may decide to vote in different electoral districts. Students can choose to vote in their home district or in Windsor West where they are studying, where they have a permanent address, but they may not have the identification required because they do not have it with them or they have not yet reached that point in their lives where they have obtained that type of identification. That is important, because the percentage of voters in Canada is steadily dropping. There are a few peaks once in a while, but the percentage is low in terms of individuals being engaged enough to feel that their vote counts and at the same time are willing to come out to cast their ballot.

Before Bill C-31 is considered, we need a full commitment to go back to the census and the enumeration that was done. There is a potential cost in this. No doubt it takes more resources, but I have seen the benefits even in my own consistency.

When we had the complete count in 2000, I was the chair for Windsor and Essex County. Our municipality was engaged in door to door canvassing to sign up people in the electoral district. I represent a population of great ethnic diversity. There are educational institutions as well. A lot of people move in and out of the district at different points in time. That resulted in low enumeration in the past. We did a complete count. We were one of six communities across the country that actually did door to door canvassing.

That was important because of the language issues. We worked with a series of different not for profit organizations, dedicated groups and individuals, as well as municipal, provincial and federal colleagues to ensure that we were getting the best enumeration process possible. The statistical information for the census is important for the electoral end of things.

The census is also important for funding and for information that we use for a whole variety of social programs and services. It is also important when we are lobbying for some of the changes that are necessary for areas that might require more immigration services or more types of government intervention on issues that are important to Canadians. It also helps seniors, who are being left off the GIS, to get enrolled. The series of net benefits that we get from that investment are very important.

I would argue that a census is one of the first things that needs to be done even before Bill C-31, or in conjunction with it. If we are trying to actually improve the democratic electoral process, a census needs be done to get people out. Bill C-31 is more restrictive in those confines, whereas the census elements are more important to ensuring that the people are being identified.

Another thing that I find interesting about the bill is clause 18. I find clause 18 disturbing in the sense that it would provide a sharing of birthdates with political parties. What would end up happening is that political parties would acquire people's birthdates as part of their return from Elections Canada. I find it completely unacceptable how this amendment got into the bill and why the other three political parties are supporting it. It is a complete invasion of privacy and the bill needs to be dumped on that alone.

We have seen enough in terms of the United States with the patriot act and a series of other scandals involving private corporations that have exposed Canadians' privacy in many different ways. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why and what type of justification there is to provide the age of a voting person to political parties. That is people's private information. What does it matter if an 18 year old, a 40 year old or 60 year old votes?

I can say, from a party perspective, what the party will do. It will identify people who voted on that day. It will then identify who the people are and then their ages. It will be able to target people and individuals for messaging. I believe it is counterproductive to the renewal of democracy.

Why is it that the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Bloc need to have people's private birthdates? I do not understand that. It is not just for that time that they have it. They will have that list in perpetuity so that they will always be able to define people's needs and target them a lot more strongly because they have that private information.

It is rude to just go out and ask somebody their birthday or their age. People do not walk around the street and normally do that. People seem to want to keep that information to themselves. Why would we then have this bill, an instrument to collect that information and put it into the partisan core of politics of those party operatives? I do not understand that. The bill needs to be dumped just for that alone.

The member for Ottawa Centre has done an excellent job proposing solutions to the bill and has tried to get this clause out but was defeated. He then wrote a letter to the privacy commissioner on January 19, 2007, for which we have not had a response yet. The letter reads:

Dear Ms. Stoddart,

Recently the Standing Committee on Procedures and House Affairs amended and passed Bill C-31, An Act to Amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act. In its original form Bill C-31 required elector's birth date information to be made available to Elections Canada to use for the purpose of verification of electors. As a Member of Parliament I have concerns about the possible misuse of this information and believe most Canadians would not support this kind of information being shared with Elections Canada. While I have great confidence in the integrity of Elections Canada and all who are employed by them, I do worry that such a large database with such wide distribution would be vulnerable to potential abuse.

The reason for my correspondence is to alert you to my concern and to inform you of a more disturbing breech of privacy.

An amendment was passed in Committee that would also require Elections Canada to share the birth date information of all registered voters with all registered political parties. I believe that this is an abuse of a citizen's privacy; therefore, I politely request that you investigate the implications of sharing this type of information with Elections Canada and most importantly the implications of sharing this information with political parties.

I look forward to your response.

Thanking you in advance,

Member of Parliament

Ottawa Centre

Once again I must impress upon the public that the bill needs to be defeated on that clause alone. It is something that needs to be taken out. Personal privacy is something we pride ourselves on. For this clause to be added to the bill is a slap in the face of democracy.

The principle of the bill is important in the sense of cleaning up our electoral process but as it is now it would detract from actually encouraging and expanding voter turnout and giving people the opportunity to participate in democracy. For all those reasons we cannot support the bill in its current form.

The House resumed from February 2 consideration of Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on the order paper.

When Bill C-31 returns to the House, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley will have two minutes left for his speech and also five minutes of questions and comments.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act.

I speak strongly in support of the amendments at report stage put forward by my colleagues from Ottawa Centre and Vancouver East. I thank both of them for their long term work on the issue of full participation in elections in Canada in terms of both democratic reform and fair elections. Both the member for Ottawa Centre and the member for Vancouver East have been long-time and strong advocates for the participation of all Canadians in the electoral process, particularly marginalized Canadians, to ensure they do not lose their franchise in Canada. I know the amendments that they have put forward, which we are debating at this point, have come out of that experience and work.

New Democrats have very serious concerns about the bill. As has been heard over the course of several days of debate on it, we are very concerned about what this does to the electoral process in Canada and how this affects the most marginalized people in our communities. We want to ensure that we have a fair electoral system and one of which we can be proud and in which we have confidence.

There has been constant talk from the government, and from the Liberals and the Bloc, that the bill is about stopping opportunities for voter fraud. It is not about stopping voter fraud. It is about stopping the opportunities for voter fraud, and that is because it is hard to point to exactly where the problem is with the current situation. Where exactly is the problem with the current voting process and with presenting oneself on election day to vote?

The Chief Electoral Officer was asked that question directly at the committee when he was testifying in relation to the bill. What he said was very interesting. He said that there had been a few isolated incidents of attempted voter fraud, but nothing systemic or large scale. He said that there were some investigations underway, but there were no current charges. Over the course of the last few days, we have constantly heard about the need for this, but we have never really heard very many specifics about the record of charges or convictions around voter or electoral fraud in Canada. That is because there have been very few, if any, convictions for voter fraud in Canada.

We keep hearing about anecdotal evidence. The previous speaker from West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country talked about anecdotal reports. That is all well and good, but I do not think we develop legislation based on anecdotal reports. We need to develop legislation out of real experience and real problems that exist in our communities and with legislation and law in Canada.

Anecdotal reports just do not cut it. We have all heard those kinds of reports. Sometimes I think they are stimulated by partisan competition between electoral parties and scurrilous charges that have nothing to do with the reality of the process at the time of an election.

I really believe the bill sets out to try to solve a problem that does not really exist. It is a phantom problem of the opportunity for electoral voter fraud. It is kind of like the need for the big foot rabies protection act. It may exist, but it may not and we had better get to work solving it right away. I do not think that is a way in which we should be proceeding in the House.

Other issues are far more important in terms of electoral reform, but we have not spend any time on them in the House. Nor did the committee spend any time on them.

The whole question of proportional representation is something that Canadians know goes to the heart of the problems with our electoral system. It goes to the heart of improving our electoral system. Yet we have not been spending time on figuring out a way to implement that in Canada to ensure that all political ideas in Canada, all political ideas that Canadians hold, are represented in Parliament and that groups are represented, all ethnic minorities and racial minorities, and that women are represented in numbers representative of their place in our communities.

We need a system that takes those kinds of considerations into account and we do not have that now in the first past the post system. We need to ensure new approaches to government rather than the winner takes all approach that we have now. I think there would be spinoff benefits for that.

Some people say that we will be in an endless minority government situation. I do not fear that. I believe we will learn new ways of doing politics that stress cooperation and coalition building. I also do not fear the models of other countries where there is a proportional representation system. People sometimes say, “Do we want a Parliament like Italy?” It does not seem to me that Italy has collapsed as a country because of the wide representation in the Parliament of Italy.

People do not seem to recognize that Israel has a very fine tuned proportional representation system. Yet the Parliament of Israel, The Knesset, has never failed to act in the national interest of Israel when push comes to shove.

Those are good examples to remember. There are different ways of doing politics than the one where a party does not receive a majority of votes cast by Canadians, but it gets a majority in the House and then runs roughshod over all the other political ideas that are of importance to Canadians.

We should have spent more time on this legislation, ensuring that there was universal enumeration at each election. We all know, those of us who have run in campaigns or who have organized political campaigns, that there are huge flaws in the permanent voters list. An NDP suggestion to go back to a universal enumeration at each election was defeated as Bill C-31 was being considered in committee.

That is the crux of the matter. We have heard about huge numbers of voters being left off the list at elections and the problems that those have caused on election day. We need to go back to a system that ensures that each time we have an election in the country we seek out all the potential voters and ensure they are on the list, so they can exercise their franchise.

Some simple measures, which do not need legislation, would go further to deal with potential voter fraud. We could have done, and I think we could still do under the current provisions of the current electoral law, measures such as putting voter cards in sealed and addressed envelopes, so the information on a voter postcard or voter card could not be viewed or copied by other people. A measure such as that would be a significant step toward preventing the opportunity for voter fraud, one that does not require this legislation nor new legislation.

I also want to talk about the provision of the bill that was added on an amendment, I believe, by the Bloc and supported by the Liberals. Now it seems the Conservatives have caved in and are supporting it as well. It is the birthdate information that will be collected as part of the building of the voter list and it will be distributed and shared with political parties.

I am not at all concerned that Elections Canada officials and employees have access to that information as part of ensuring a fair electoral process. However, huge difficulties with an amendment that would see this information provided to all the parties. It is a huge invasion of privacy. It is an invitation to identity theft.

There is no need and no justification for political parties to receive this information. There has been chatter in the hallways of Parliament that MPs are looking forward to having birthdate information so they can call constituents on their birthday and wish them a happy birthday, or so political parties can more finely tune their polling or their distribution of political information in constituencies. There is absolutely no need for that kind of invasion of privacy. It is a huge grab of private information by the political parties.

The restrictions around vouching are unacceptable. We heard a criticism of serial vouching. In many neighbourhoods and communities that will disenfranchise many people. The fact that there will have to be a person who is on the voters list in that poll to vouch for another person and that this person can only vouch for one person will limit the access of many people to the voters list and to exercise their franchise. There is no excuse for that kind of limitation.

We should be doing what we can to encourage people. If there is a person who is working in that area and who knows people and where they live, there is no reason why they should not be able to vouch for more than one person.

We see a steady decline in voter turnout. We need to take measures that work toward increasing the turnout. The legislation goes in the opposite direction. It increases unfairness and reduces the ability of people to participate in the electoral process. For that reason I cannot support the bill.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-31, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act.

Canada is a great democracy. We have a long tradition of being one of the most open, fair and inclusive democracies in the world. To honour that tradition, though, we must continually strive to improve both the integrity of our electoral process and its accessibility. By so doing, we allow ordinary Canadians the opportunity to exercise their right to vote easily and with confidence.

This bill, I believe, aims to further these goals. It is based on the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and the report, “Improving the Integrity of the Electoral Process: Recommendations for Legislative Change”. This report, in turn, was based in part on recommendations from the Chief Electoral Officer.

The bill would amend the Canada Elections Act to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for electoral fraud or for error. It would require that, before voting, electors must provide one piece of government issued photo identification that shows their name and address, or two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer that shows their name and address , or they can also take an oath and they may be vouched for by one other elector who has photo identification from that riding.

These changes would do much to improve the consistency of our electoral process. Too often the identification rules have been applied in an inconsistent manner, unfairly placing demands on some citizens that others do not have to meet.

In the last election alone, I encountered several instances of inconsistent behaviour. For instance, anecdotal reports from scrutineers in my riding suggested that voters were rarely challenged for identification in one area of my riding but continually challenged in other areas. At least one voter in the latter area had to go home to get her identification.

This inconsistency is a product of our current rules which only require that identification be checked when an electoral officer, the candidate or a candidate's representative has reason to doubt the identity of an individual wanting to vote. It is regrettable when different citizens are held to different standards across our country, something that is all too possible under our current state of affairs.

I would also like to stress that the vouching procedure has been retained. Anyone who has no suitable identification can still be vouched for by another person with valid identification, ensuring that none of Canada's vulnerable population will be denied the right to vote.

The new rules, however, also introduced safeguards against serial vouching by allowing each elector to only vouch for one person and to not allow vouching by electors who have been vouched for before. This would stop an abuse that has been experienced around Canada.

One instance I know of, on which I have heard consistent complaints, is in the riding of Trinity—Spadina where over 10,000 new voters were registered on election day. It is almost inconceivable that 10,000 people in one riding would be vouched for on a serial basis. These are the types of potential abuses that this legislation is aiming to stop.

The bill would also amend the Canadian Elections Act to make operational changes to improve the accuracy of the National Register of Electors. It would facilitate voting and enhance communications with the electorate. It would amend the Public Service Employment Act to permit the Public Service Commission to make regulations that would now extend to the maximum term of employment of casual workers. These changes are all welcome.

It is also pleasing to see a practical approach to interprovincial cooperation in these changes. Currently, the act permits the sharing of information between provincial governments and Elections Canada. However, the Chief Electoral Officer can only share data in the registry. He cannot share source or preliminary data or other data that is not incorporated in the registry itself. Both the Chief Electoral Officer and the committee have recommended that he should be able to share all data and, accordingly, the bill would expand the scope of data that is permitted to be exchanged.

The bill also would allow a common sense improvement to the information collected by the Canada Revenue Agency. It would create a citizenship box on the tax returns so that taxpaying residents who are citizens of other countries do not end up on our electoral rolls as they still do today.

Bill C-31 would also allow the Canada Revenue Agency to share information about deceased electors, ensuring that the deceased do not end up on our voters list.

While the government did not incorporate all of the committee's recommendations into the bill, it stated that when it did not accept these recommendations it had a fundamental disagreement with principle, items required further study or that we had received inadequate testimony that had been unable to reach a definitive decision during the committee proceedings.

A major concern of the Liberal members of the committee is to ensure that the bill allows aboriginal status identification to be deemed acceptable proof for voting purposes. Government officials have clarified that the text of the bill requires government issued photo ID with an address or government issued photo ID without an address. This would include band status cards but they would need to be accompanied by a letter from the band council or something, such as a phone bill, that would have the person's number, name and address to corroborate the claim that he or she was indeed eligible to vote in a specific riding.

My riding of West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country is home to a large aboriginal population. It is unfortunate that the turnout in polls in the first nations community in my riding is well below the average for the riding as a whole. As parliamentarians, we must work to improve their participation and it would be irresponsible to put an unjustified obstacle in their way. First nations members should be able to use their aboriginal identification to vote, full stop.

On this side of the House, the Liberal Party supports changes to the Canada Elections Act to protect against the likelihood of voter fraud and misrepresentation. We need to ensure that aboriginal photo identification is an acceptable form of voter identification. We also support strengthening the enumeration process, particularly on reserve communities and other areas of low voter enumeration.

A photo identification is essential because on election day it would allow the volunteers and the workers at Election Canada to facilitate Canadians who have the right to vote and ensure no mistakes or voter fraud are involved in what we know is an outstanding electoral system. We need adequate safeguards to ensure that eligible Canadians are able to vote, to prevent fraud and to ensure that no one is impeded in his or her ability to vote.

The bill achieves these aims and ensures the integrity of the Canadian electoral process.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act. This bill flows from a committee report that sought to address certain concerns about the election process. In my opinion, everyone on both sides of the House wants an election process that is as impeccable as possible. However, careful attention must be paid to the negative effects certain sections of this bill may have. My colleagues who were members of the committee attempted to mitigate these effects by proposing certain amendments.

We should also remember that Canada does not have to make any drastic changes. I believe that Canada's Chief Electoral Officer stated that the integrity of our electoral system is intact and that there were, at the very most, only two or three cases of fraud in the last elections.

I would like to talk about certain sections of the legislation that we are discussing. First, some of them could deprive the most vulnerable of their right to vote. Second, they would allow political parties to assume the right to receive personal information, such as the date of birth of Canadians. I will start with this last point.

As I mentioned, the intent behind taking all possible measures to reduce the possibility of fraud is excellent. However, providing all political parties with personal information, such as birth dates, is symptomatic of a big brother state.

What in the world could justify giving political parties this information, aside from allowing MPs to make a birthday call for crass political reasons or to better target voters? This is not about reducing fraud. It is simply about targeting voters to get personal information to improve political parties' messaging. The Conservative Party, for example, is already spending fortunes to find out what would make voters less likely to vote for the Liberal Party rather than focusing on the issues. We are now developing personality attacks in Canada. I think Canadians will be very irritated when they find out that political parties can now have that kind of personal information.

It seems to me that political parties already have enough information, if we judge from the kinds of political ads that are presently being aired. Why make political opportunism more rampant than it is right now in Canada? I ask my colleagues to be attentive to this tool that Liberals and Conservatives are proposing and want to create through this law. The tool will shape the use, as noted scientist Ursula Franklin says. If we do not foresee the impacts of the changes that we are proposing through this law, we will not make a good decision.

Talking about good public policy, I would like to go back to the question of the new requirements for one piece of government issued photo ID showing a name and address, and two pieces of ID authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer showing the name and address of the voter, or the requirement to take an oath, or to be vouched for by another elector.

On the surface, this might seem fairly benign or innocuous, but in reality it seems that this bill could result in thousands of individuals who lack proper identification due to poverty or disability, or who have no stable address, not being able to exercise their right to vote because of the identification requirements of this bill. People who are homeless or temporarily housed often do not have identification that reflects their addresses or their stay in a shelter. During the last election I spoke with some homeless people on the street and that was in fact their case. They could go to a homeless shelter where the staff there could vouch for many of them, but this possibility would be removed for them. It would further disenfranchise those people.

My colleague from Ottawa Centre put forward recommendations at committee that would have addressed these concerns. These included the use of a statutory declaration as an alternate means of identification for an elector to prove his or her identity. I believe we also proposed an amendment to allow for a representative of a recognized agency, such as happens now, to be authorized to vouch for the agency's clientele as authorized by the local returning officer. These amendments were defeated by members of the other parties.

We should talk about one of the real problems that has occurred, and that is with respect to enumeration. I know personally that my daughter-in-law, who lived with me six years ago and has voted since then in a number of elections, still receives her voter slip at my address. There has been a real problem in performing proper enumeration in Canada and this should be corrected. That would be a way of reducing the possibility of fraud. This bill just does not do it.

The bill does require other amendments, for example, the proposed amendments to the PSE Act that are, more or less, buried in the bill. Those amendments could, potentially, have a significant impact on employment patterns in the federal public service where, clearly, the Conservative government is talking about more flexible employment and more flexibility in departmental hiring. We have a concern about what that might mean.

The bill is not good in its present form and I would urge my colleagues to consider some of the amendments that have been proposed by my colleagues.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C-31 at the report stage. This bill includes a number of amendments that are basically grouped into three sections, in addition to the amendments proposed by the hon. member for Ottawa Centre, at the report stage. I will focus primarily on the foundation of the bill, that is, the amendments concerning the electoral list, its preparation, maintenance, use, precision and accuracy.

From time to time, it is a good idea to evaluate the process in order to ensure that elections—either Canada's general elections or byelections, the elections that bring us into this House—are properly structured and accurately reflect the will of the population.

Recently, since the list was created, many questions have been raised about its quality.

Without criticizing anyone in particular, I believe it is important from time to time for parliamentarians to assess the situation and offer corrections, if needed. That is essentially what we are doing today. The Chief Electoral Officer and the committee have thought about this issue and made recommendations to the government. Generally speaking, the government seems to have accepted these recommendations to ensure that the permanent list of electors is better structured and that the accuracy of the information is improved.

It will be possible to obtain information from both the federal and provincial levels. The information could be combined better and given an identifier in order to avoid the duplication of names and so forth. In my opinion, these amendments should generally improve the permanent list of electors.

There is also the whole issue of voter turnout. We have heard comments about this from our colleagues. They mentioned the decline in voter turnout in Canada. In the past, questions were raised about the quality of the list and the number of duplications. Would this situation not be artificially lowering the turnout rate among the Canadian public? If the list is inflated with a few too many duplications, then such an improvement in preparing the list could eliminate this problem.

That is what I had to say about the first series of amendments to the bill. I did not hear anyone categorically oppose them.

The second series has to do with the need to identify the electors on polling day or when electors want to register on the list of electors on polling day.

On this matter, I share the concerns and apprehensions of a number of my colleagues that the system, as it is currently structured, could be abused.

On election day, when one goes from polling station to polling station and sees several dozen people waiting to register on the list of electors, one is entitled to ask what is wrong with the system.

There is not necessarily any fraudulent activity involved but, obviously, something is not right with the system. In my opinion, it is up to us to eliminate all opportunities for abuse. I believe it is fair to ask for photo identification, a government identification card or an identification card that is recognized or authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer. Most Canadians have no problem with that.

These days when we get on a plane, we have to have photo ID. It is also required when applying for credit and when young people want to have a drink.

Photo ID is often required to join a political party, or to fight for a nomination in a riding or the leadership of a party.

I think that asking voters and citizens to present photo ID is quite acceptable and normal. I would perhaps be less inclined to accept this if there were no other means of registering. We have to recognize that some citizens may find it difficult to obtain photo ID.

The system will continue to allow citizens to register without photo ID under certain conditions. Someone must be able to verify that the information provided by the person wishing to register is true and accurate.

I have to admit that I did hear of some situations in certain areas of the country where, on the day of the election, hundreds, even thousands, of individuals arrived to register. This was cause for concern or, at least, food for thought.

The parliamentary committee did its work and proposed legitimate recommendations. The government has accepted them and we will now proceed with these changes so that Canadians will have greater confidence in our electoral system.

I must admit that I am not inclined, at this point at least—unless I am shown evidence of fraud—to go so far as to require a voter's card. We have heard about them and some colleagues have seen them in certain countries.

In some situations, such as when an electoral process is just being introduced, a voter's card can be beneficial. Last summer, two of my parliamentary colleagues and I had the opportunity to participate in the elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo as observers. Voter's cards really went a long way toward inspiring confidence in the electoral process there.

I do not think we are at that stage, so I do not think we need a voter's card. But that is not what the bill is proposing. The bill is proposing that voters can use any piece of government-issued photo identification, such as a driver's licence, a passport or a health card. I support that.

I think that most Canadians will recognize that this makes sense.

Our colleagues from the New Democratic Party highlighted one of the administrative measures in Part 3 concerning casual hiring—from 90 to 125 days. The Chief Electoral Officer requested this power. The committee acted wisely in leaving that power with the Public Service Commission which will be able to increase the number of days a person can work casually from 90 to 125 days per year, at its discretion. The Public Service Commission has a great deal of knowledge about and experience managing the public service and will be able to bring in appropriate regulations in this case. I am comfortable with that way of doing things.

From the comments I have heard, all of my colleagues recognize that it is essential that Canadians have confidence in the electoral process. When issues come up, it is our duty as parliamentarians to stop, think and find a solution if we can. If it is theoretically possible to abuse the system, we must act to eliminate that possibility, at least in theory. That is what this bill is proposing.

All in all, this is a positive bill that will move things forward. It will not stop us from checking periodically to make sure that the spirit of the bill is being respected and that those goals are being met, and, if they are not, bringing in new solutions.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from B.C. Southern Interior has given us a very helpful intervention in the debate on Bill C-31.

I think we have a bit of a phantom bill here. It is a bill that is trying to address an issue that has not proven to be a serious problem in Canada. We keep hearing about the need to address the opportunity to commit electoral fraud when we know that the actual incidents of electoral fraud have been very few. In fact, it is hard to get anyone to give a very clear example of a conviction, let alone a charge, of electoral fraud in Canada, yet we have this whole piece of legislation that largely attempts to deal with this phantom issue of electoral fraud.

In this corner of the House, we believe there are some very serious issues around electoral reform that need to be addressed. I know that one of them is very important to us and to the member for British Columbia Southern Interior. It is the whole question of proportional representation. We want to make sure that the House is truly representative of all the political ideas that are found in Canada and that Canadians are interested in.

In the current first past the post system, that just is never the case. It is also never the case that the representation in the House clearly reflects the popular vote in Canada or reflects the diversity of the Canadian population or the participation of women in Canadian politics.

I wonder if the member for British Columbia Southern Interior might comment on what is really needed in terms of electoral reform in Canada and particularly on proportional representation.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Secretary of State]

Mr. Speaker, it has already been well stated by members of Parliament from all four political parties in the House how important is the integrity of our electoral system. I certainly would agree with that.

Even prior to the government bringing forward Bill C-31, I have been a very welcome participant in the debate that has ensued at the procedure and House affairs committee, so I welcome the remarks of my colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River, not Kenora—Rainy River, and agree with the thrust of the comments he was making.

I would like to draw attention to the comments of his colleague from Vancouver Quadra who on a number of occasions has made reference to the fact that if we as the nation Canada are going to be a beacon for democracy, and a model, as my colleague just referred to, to the developing nations in the world, then it is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians and indeed all Canadians to ensure that our electoral system is of the highest possible standard. That is the concern of all of us. It certainly was expressed by members of Parliament at the procedure and House affairs committee.

I could not agree with my colleague from Vancouver Quadra more about that fundamental point, that it is up to us to ensure that we safeguard the integrity of our system. If there is any possibility of fraud, we must make adjustments to our system to ensure that we can stand up or as he said, when we suggest to other nations how they could model their systems on ours, that we have every confidence that we are holding ours up as the standard to aspire to. I would agree with the member on that.

The NDP has brought up this whole issue of vouching. The difficulty I have with that is if we have multiple vouching where one individual says, “Yes, I know Joe and Sam and Lou”, et cetera, there is an obvious opportunity for fraud, and that is what we are trying to prevent.

I recently had the opportunity to be in South Africa, a nation that has been developing its electoral system. A specific voter ID card is required there. In addition, it is required that the thumb be actually inked on the day of the election. These are the extremes that some countries are going to, to ensure there is absolutely no fraud in their systems and yet we seem to be balking at even having fundamental rules about voter identification.

As the member for Vancouver Quadra indicated, it is very difficult for us to maintain our defence of our system if we cannot ensure when we say this to other countries that ours is an example.

I wonder if my colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River would comment on this whole business of vouching specifically and of the importance of ensuring that when a person actually casts his or her ballot that at a minimum the person is a citizen and he or she does at least even temporarily reside in the riding where he or she is marking his or her X.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to express my support for Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act. The bill would make many positive changes to the Elections Act that would protect against voter fraud and misrepresentation.

One issue that the bill addresses is the current practice of using federal income tax returns to update the Elections Canada register. Certainly tax returns are an excellent tool to obtain current information on our citizens. However, I have had numerous experiences where an individual is listed on the electors list who is not a Canadian citizen.

As we know, only Canadian citizens over 18 years of age are qualified to vote. The bill adds proposed section 46.1 to the Canada Elections Act authorizing the Minister of National Revenue to amend tax return forms so that individuals may indicate whether they are Canadian citizens. I believe this is a very positive step and will reduce significant confusion among foreign citizens who reside in our communities. I will have an anecdote toward the end of my speech on this very issue.

The bill would also implement new requirements for proof of identity to be shown at the voter's booth. I am sure we have all heard stories of voter cards being stolen. Until now there has been no requirement to show any proof of identity, which meant that anyone who had a voter's card could cast a vote, regardless of whether he or she were actually the citizen whose name was on the card.

Clearly, under the former system there was a very big loophole and any person or group with dishonest intentions could steal voter cards and use them for their own purposes. This deficiency put the entire election process in a bad light and had the potential to cause significant damage to the rights of Canadian citizens. Often, the perception of wrongdoing is just as harmful as the actual immoral act. As such, just having such a deficit in the system can add to the distrust felt by voters.

I am pleased that this new process will be implemented to ensure that all Canadian citizens who are eligible to vote cannot have that right stolen from them by the dishonesty of another.

Under this process, a voter would be required to provide identification at the voter's booth. That identification consists of: one piece of ID issued by any level of government that contains a photo and the name and address of the voter; or, two pieces of identification with the name and address that have been authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer. The Chief Electoral Officer would be required to publish a list of what will be acceptable identification; or, alternatively, if the elector does not have suitable identification, he or she can take an oath as long as he or she can be vouched for by another person who is listed on the list of electors.

I am very pleased with this third alternative being added to the bill. There are many people, whether seniors or disabled individuals, who do not have the above identification items. Through this option to take an oath, these Canadian citizens would still be able to vote as granted by the Canadian Charter of Rights.

The bill also addresses the practice of serial vouching by limiting each elector to be able to vouch for only one person. In addition, it bans vouching by electors who have been vouched for by another. That is a good rule. I am confident that this new provision to require proof of identity will be an excellent deterrent to fraud.

As the member of Parliament for Thunder Bay—Rainy River, there are 11 first nations in my riding: Fort William, Lac Des Mille Lacs, Lac La Croix, Seine River First Nation, Nicickousemenecaning, Couchiching First Nation, Naicatchewenin, Manitou Mounds, Rainy River First Nations, Stanjikoming First Nation, Big Island and Big Grassy.

The residents in first nations such as those often share one joint community postal box. As such, door to door enumeration in those areas is vital to ensuring that all eligible first nations people are included on the voters list.

One can imagine the difficulties when fathers, sons and uncles or mothers, aunts and daughters have the same name and surname. This can create terrific problems. It has in the past and I believe it has led to considerable discouragement of the voting process.

I am pleased with the committee motion calling on the Chief Electoral Officer to strengthen enumeration in reserve communities and areas of low enumeration. I believe this extra effort will go a long way to help the disenfranchisement of our first nations people in federal elections.

We have all heard of the horror stories in the big urban ridings of people being bused in by the dozens or the hundreds, voter cards missing from apartment buildings and those kinds of things. This amendment would certainly correct that. It is important to instill that last vestige of security that we need for our democratic process.

As elected representatives, we are all familiar with the process of volunteers calling people who have received voter cards and then being asked whether they can vote with their card. The volunteer must ask whether they are 18 and whether they are Canadian citizens. From a campaign standpoint, we can give them the best advice but they still have the card sent to them.

I believe that with this type of identification we should be able to eliminate those last vestiges of people taking advantage of the system.

In the last round of municipal elections in Ontario there was yet another decrease in voter participation. In my previous life I was the mayor of the city of Thunder Bay. Although I did not run in the last municipal election, many people actually congratulated me and advised me that they had voted for me. We know there is considerable confusion in the democratic process. It is flattering, but then I know for sure these people did not vote for me.

If we want to set an international example, when we go to other nations that ask us to consult and be the model on which they establish their democratic process, it comes down to presenting them with our great rules and our great process. However, I only hope that they have not watched question period when they ask for an example of how a democratic nation should behave. Indeed, our own decorum is probably where we should be starting to set an example, not only for ourselves but for the young people in the galleries. They know that if they behaved and used some of the language that they hear, they would rapidly be in detention or out of class.

If we can restore that decorum part, it will let people know that if we think they are important, then they will realize that they are important and that their vote has much more value and importance. By knowing that they count, that actually means our country counts for more. In this way, we would actually increase the value or the significance of someone's vote. People would not feel that their vote has been wasted. People would feel that they were all pretty much the same.

Standards of respect and recognition in decorum, in tandem with Bill C-31 on the technical side, would certainly restore voter confidence. We know as a nation, when we compare ourselves to nations such as Australia with compulsory voting or others with much higher voter participation, that we can do more.

I encourage all members to support Bill C-31 to increase voter participation.