Bill C-18 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (verification of residence)

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to allow an elector or voucher who provides a piece of identification that does not prove his or her residence to use that piece of identification to prove his or her residence provided that the address on the piece of identification is consistent with information related to the elector or voucher that appears on the list of electors.

Canada Elections Act

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

moved that Bill C-18, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (verification of residence), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to stand today to speak to Bill C-18, verification of residence. It is important for me to put things in context as to how this bill came about and why we are debating it here today.

It all started in the last session with Bill C-31, the integrity of voters, in which we debated at committee and in this place on the plans for the government to introduce legislation that would require voters to produce identification before voting at a polling station in their riding. This was something that was unique. Prior to the bill being passed there were no requirements for visual identification or identification of other sorts prior to voting.

We wanted to make sure that we took appropriate steps to ensure that there would be no voter fraud at any election in the future because we had heard many times from many sources information suggesting that there had been perhaps isolated incidents, but incidents nonetheless, of individuals fraudulently casting ballots in federal elections.

In fact, at committee we heard several examples of how this could occur. Very simply it could occur because someone who wished to impersonate or fraudulently vote in an election could pick up a voter identification card. These are the cards that are sent out to Canadians by Canada Post with their name and address indicating that they are to vote at a certain polling station or certain location in their riding.

Here is an example what would happen in some cases. These voter cards would be sent to apartments and many apartment residents might see it in their post office box, pick it up and just discard it in the garbage bin located in the foyer or their mail box location within their apartment complex. Some individuals then could literally go and take one of these voter cards, walk to the appropriate station on voting day, identify themselves as the person whose name appeared on the voting card, get a ballot and vote. Of course, that is fraud and we want to prevent that.

We had other identified cases in committee where one voter might get three or four voting cards. How would that happen? Simply someone may be named “John Doe” and at another address such as a business location might be named “Johnathan Doe”, or maybe “J.D. Doe”. So there are cases in which the same individual might be listed multiple times and that individual, should he or she wish to do so, would have the ability to go to different polling stations within his or her riding with these various voting cards and say “I am this person”, and then vote multiple times.

We wanted to take steps to ensure the integrity of the voting system and that was the genesis behind Bill C-31. When the legislation was drafted, it contained two provisions in terms of identification. One was that in order to be eligible to receive a ballot and cast a ballot, an individual would have to either show one government issued photo identified piece of identification such as a driver's licence or provide two pieces of identification that Elections Canada had prescribed, one of which would have the residential address on it and both of which would have the voter's name on it. Those two then would suffice and the individual would be able to receive a ballot.

Also, I want to inform all members of the House and all Canadians who may be watching that if people did not have proper identification, they still had the ability to get a ballot and cast a ballot by way of vouching. This quite simply was if someone came to a polling station and said “I live here, I am a resident of this riding, I want to vote and I would like a ballot”, but they did not have proper identification in one of the two prescribed forms that I just identified, they could get someone to vouch for them.

In other words, someone who was eligible to vote, who had proper identification and who lived in the same polling division would be able to say to the returning officer, “Yes, I know this person. This is the person who is who he says he is and he lives in this riding”. In that fashion that individual, without identification, would be able to cast a ballot.

We thought that this was an appropriate piece of legislation. It would sort of cover off all of the bases. It would ensure that there was integrity in the voting system, but at the same time it would place some requirements on voters to actually produce identification ensuring that the integrity within the voting system was paramount.

We debated this. We brought in witnesses. All committee members examined this bill very rigorously. We had officials from Elections Canada come in. We eventually passed this through committee I believe on June 20, 2007. It was later given rapid royal assent, which is unusual with some pieces of legislation in the Senate. I believe it received royal assent on June 22, 2007.

The reason we wanted to get this bill passed as quickly as we could, even though we gave it due diligence and we wanted to make it as expeditious as possible, is because as everyone knows in a minority government situation an election could occur at any time. Also, there were several byelections that were pending. We wanted to ensure that this bill was passed into law before any election took place, whether it be a general election or a byelection.

Recently, in the fall of 2007 there were three byelections in Quebec and this bill was in effect. People were required to produce identification. After the election of the three new members of Parliament, Elections Canada then took a look at how this identification requirement worked and whether it was sufficient.

Lo and behold, Elections Canada found a glitch in the system because the bill contained the phrase “residential address”. In other words, proper identification required someone to produce ID that gave the name and residential address of the voter.

There are many Canadians, approximately a million across Canada, who reside primarily in rural ridings or rural portions of a riding at least, who do not have a “residential address”. They have addresses that are contained in the form of a post office box number or a rural route number or even perhaps a land description. Technically, the way Bill C-31 was worded, those people would be ineligible to vote. Although they had an address, it was not considered to be a residential address.

As soon as the government discovered that we wanted to take rapid action to correct it. Once again we could be on the cusp of a general election. Once again there are several byelections pending. We wanted to ensure that there was no disenfranchised voter in Canada because of this glitch in the legislation that we had passed.

Therefore, we started a very rapid consultation process. I know I personally met with my democratic reform critics from the other parties with a suggested wording and a suggested change to correct this glitch in Bill C-31. We also consulted with Elections Canada.

Basically, what we came up with was a very simple but yet very effective fix to the problem at hand. It is quite simply that anyone who can produce identification at a polling station, name and identification of course, and whose address on their identification was the same as the address on the voters list, regardless of whether it was a residential address or a non-residential address, then that individual would be eligible to vote.

In other words, and I will use myself as an example because I would have been or I am currently I suppose, because this legislation has not yet passed this House, I am one of those disenfranchised voters. I live in a small community in Saskatchewan called Regina Beach. We all have civic addresses. I live at 308 Sunset Drive, yet no one has at home mail delivery. We have post office boxes. So on my identification it says P.O. Box 458, Regina Beach, Saskatchewan. Every single resident of Regina Beach has the same non-residential address, a P.O. box of some fashion and some number.

Under the terms of Bill C-31, since I do not have a residential address I would not be allowed to vote. However, by introducing Bill C-18, which we are speaking on today, the address I have on my identification is the same that appears on the voters list. Therefore, I would be able to get a ballot and vote. It is a very simple and effective fix. We feel this is something that, if all members in this assembly agree, could be passed quickly and I think we should.

Some have argued that it still does not deal with the entire problem and there still may be the odd person here or there who is disenfranchised or potentially could be disenfranchised. For example, if he or she moves into a community and does not have proper identification because the election was held within days of moving to a new location, the individual does not have a new driver's licence or any other identification that shows his or her new residential or non-residential address.

However, we still have the ability, as in Bill C-31, to vouch for individuals. If people are able to provide another person who is an eligible voter to vouch for them, they would be able to cast a ballot. I would suggest that in rural Canada this probably would be easier to do than it would be in urban Canada.

Let me explain. In urban Canada or larger cities, people come and go as houses are sold and new residents move in. It has been my experience that a lot of people in the larger cities do not know their neighbours well. Some do, but in many cases they are very insulated. They have a cocoon-like mentality. They go home at night, lock their doors and do not really notice what is happening around them.

Therefore, if voters in urban Canada or in a larger city have just moved into a new neighbourhood and do not have proper identification showing their new residential addresses, they may find it somewhat difficult to have someone vouch for them because their neighbours may not know who they are. That is usually not the case in rural Canada.

I can use my own small town as an example. If someone new moves into our community, it seems that within hours everyone in the community knows it. They know who the person is, where he or she came from, how many children there are and what the person does for a living.

[Royal Galipeau]

What their favourite dessert is.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

And what their favourite dessert is, that is right. That happens in rural Saskatchewan. It happens in rural Canada.

So the argument that this bill still does not quite capture all of the potential problems or glitches I think is something that has been captured by this vouching system.

Will there ever be a system where absolutely, without question, 100% of individuals who live in this country and are eligible to vote will be able to cast a ballot unimpeded? I do not think so, but I think the chances are very remote that a lot of people will be in that situation. I think that Bill C-31 and this new Bill C-18 will have captured the vast majority of people who are eligible to vote and who wish to vote.

Therefore, I would strongly urge all of my colleagues to stand in this place and give this bill speedy passage. I know that none of us in this assembly want to disenfranchise anyone who lives in rural Canada because of something that was an error, something that was missed in the first piece of legislation, Bill C-31.

To speak of that for just a moment, Canadians watching this debate may ask how this could have happened. How could this bill contain such an obvious error and omission and still get passed into law? I think that is a shared responsibility, quite frankly. It was simply something that was missed. When we were first discussing Bill C-31, the procedure and House affairs committee gave its unanimous consent to bring the bill forward to be presented as a piece of legislation and we just simply missed this.

We also had officials from Elections Canada come before the committee on two occasions to examine Bill C-31. They missed it. No one picked up on the fact that the term “residential address” might cause some problems for Canadians who had a non-residential address. Bill C-31 went through the whole legislative system, passed this place, passed through the Senate, was granted royal assent and became law. It was only after the fact that we found out there was a gap in the legislation. That is why we are taking swift action to rectify this.

I would certainly hope that individuals in this place would recognize that and pass this bill speedily and get it to the Senate, where I hope the other place treats it in a similar fashion and gives it speedy passage so that we can get royal assent for Bill C-18 prior to any impending election.

One last point I should probably touch upon deals with the non-government issued photo ID requirements that I spoke of earlier. If hon. members recall, Bill C-31 contained two provisions for identification. One is to produce a government-issued photo ID stating a person's name and address, such as a driver's licence. Also, if people do not have photo ID, they can give two other pieces of identification, both of which must have their name on it, but only one of which needs to have an address on it. Those pieces of identification come from a list approved by Elections Canada.

Some would ask what kind of identification would be approved by Elections Canada. There are many pieces of identification that would suffice: student ID cards, hospital cards, library cards or even a government-issued cheque stub with a person's name and address on it. Those are the types of things that would be eligible.

Also, because I know the NDP has questions about this and has problems with the fact that we are even asking Canadians to produce identification, what about people in homeless shelters? The NDP says that homeless people do not have identification.

However, we have attestation, whereby a manager, for example, or a supervisor at a homeless centre, could attest to the fact that a person is who she says she is and she resides in that homeless shelter which is part of that riding. We have even gone to those lengths to ensure that, not only for the homeless but for senior citizens who may reside in seniors' centres and who can be attested for by the supervisors or managers of those seniors centres if they do not have proper identification.

I think we have done as much as we possibly could to ensure that there are no individuals disenfranchised, but also to respect the spirit of the original Bill C-31, which is voter integrity to try to prevent voter fraud. The only way, in our estimation and in the estimation of the procedure and House affairs committee, to ensure that voter fraud is eliminated or at least curtailed as much as possible is to have identification presented at the time the individual goes to a polling station.

In other words, I believe Bill C-31 and now Bill C-18 strike the proper balance between the ability of individuals to exercise their franchise and vote in federal elections and, on the other hand, the fact that we want to respect the integrity of the voting procedures and the voting system by ensuring there is no fraud in the voting system.

That, in a nutshell, is the genesis of Bill C-31 and it is why we introduced Bill C-18 to try to correct that gap contained in Bill C-31. Again, I would strongly encourage all of my colleagues in this place to support Bill C-18. I hope we can see its swift passage through this place.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for bringing forward these much needed improvements.

I had a question from a constituent. I wonder if the member could elaborate on whether the street address of residents had any effect on military voting for people who are not in the riding at the time, on students who are away from the riding at the particular time of voting, or on elderly people who go to the United States for the winter. Does the street address residence item affect them at all? Is it corrected in the amendment?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is asking about someone who is a snowbird and who is, for example, vacationing down in Phoenix, where I suppose half of Saskatchewan goes in the wintertime. If an election is called in the winter, he is asking, would these provisions capture any inequities in the ability of those individuals to vote?

The regular rules and regulations for special ballots remain in effect. In other words, if people are away at the time of a vote, they can still get a ballot. They can have a mail-in ballot or a special ballot of some sort. They will still have to produce some form of identification to get that ballot, but they will not be required to do anything beyond the norm.

Bill C-18 is here to address an inequity, a gap, that we found in Bill C-31, and it is here to ensure that people with non-residential addresses have the ability to vote at a voting station at the time they show up.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for presenting this bill in an attempt to fix Bill C-31, a bill that the NDP of course voted against when it originally came forward. We raised some very serious concerns at the time about the number of voters who would be disenfranchised, yet all three parties in the House, the Liberals, Conservatives and the Bloc, supported the bill. Now we see the problems emerging.

On June 18, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform said:

What we are trying to do, by presenting a bill that will give increased and expanded voting opportunities for all Canada, is attempt to raise the level of voter turnout.

Yet what we saw with Bill C-31 was that it in fact disenfranchised at least one million people in rural Canada. We also raised as an issue people who are transient or live in homeless shelters. I wonder if the member could specifically comment on how homeless people and people living in transient shelters will actually benefit from this attempt to fix a flawed bill.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I should probably correct my hon. colleague, who seems to be confusing two different bills. She quoted my comments in Hansard, and correctly, I might add, but they did not deal with Bill C-31. They were about another bill on expanded voting opportunities. That is a bill through which we want to increase the number of days on which voters can cast ballots in advance polls. We are debating that right now in committee, my committee, which I am missing in order to be here to share my comments with members. It is now called Bill C-16, which used to be called Bill C-55, and is on expanded voter opportunities. It really does not have anything to do with Bill C-31.

However, I would point out one other flaw or misinterpretation the member is trying to foist upon members of this place. She said, quite correctly, that in committee the NDP voted against Bill C-31, but it was not because NDP members identified the flaw of the residential address. NDP members voted against it strictly on the basis that they felt the homeless would be disenfranchised.

I will speak to that, but the NDP voted against Bill C-31 not because, as some of the NDP members have tried to suggest, they discovered before the bill was passed that there was this flaw on residential addresses. Nothing of that sort occurred in conversations in the procedure and House affairs committee. Every single member missed this one gap, this one little glitch that eliminated or disenfranchised rural voters who did not have a residential address. I want to correct the record on that.

Specifically on the question of the homeless, I spoke to that in my main address. We have taken great pains to try to make it as fair and as equitable as possible. Yes, many homeless, perhaps the vast majority of homeless, do not have proper identification. However, if they are members of or frequent attendees at a homeless centre, they can get the attestation, whereby the manager can say, “I verify this person's name and the fact that he or she resides in the centre”. Secondly, they do have the ability to have someone to vouch for their identity.

Finally, I would say, again as I mentioned in my main address, is there any legislation in this place which will ensure that absolutely, without question, 100% of eligible voters will be able to cast a ballot? Probably not. There probably never will be.

However, we have taken great steps to ensure a balance between the ability to ensure voter integrity and the ability of everyone who possibly can vote to do so.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the House leader for taking immediate steps on this because it affects rural voters in my constituency, but there is probably a fair share of blame and hypocrisy in the House. I know the member just referred to the comments previously made, but the member for Wascana said that this was a glaring mistake and he referred to it as a Conservative government screw-up, a massive screw-up. Yet at the same time, when we look at the voting record on the Canada Elections Act, the Bill C-31 amendment, the member for Wascana rose on both feet and voted in support of it, notwithstanding the error.

Perhaps the member could comment on the fact that my rural residents now, even with a box number, will have the right to vote with this amendment correction. Perhaps the parliamentary secretary could comment on the hypocrisy exhibited by the member for Wascana.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Souris—Moose Mountain for bringing this forward, particularly the hypocritical stance of the member for Wascana, who quite frankly has made several of these comments before. He says one thing, but when we examine the record closely, as my colleague has done, we find out that actually the reverse is true in terms of his voting patterns.

It is quite clear that not only did the member for Wascana vote in favour of Bill C-31, but all Liberal members of the procedure and House affairs committee, during examination, missed the fact that there was this gap. It is a shared responsibility. For anyone, whether it be the member for Wascana or any other member, to say that this was the blame of the Conservative government is absolutely incorrect and hypocritical, since this bill passed this House, with the exception of the New Democratic Party which voted because of the homeless issue, not because of the fact that residential addresses were contained in the bill. We should have addressed that gap.

With respect to my colleague's question about correcting this quickly so that non-residential address voters in his riding can vote, yes, we wanted to deal with this expeditiously.

I should also state that we have the assurance of the Chief Electoral Officer that this bill does correct the gaps contained in Bill C-31. In the opinion of the Chief Electoral Officer, Bill C-18 fixes that problem, completely corrects it in fact. We will have a letter to that effect to bring to the committee when we start examining Bill C-18.

The Chief Electoral Officer also stated that should there be an election prior to Bill C-18 receiving royal assent, he would be prepared to use his powers of adaptation to ensure that no rural voter was disenfranchised because he or she did not have the correct residential address on his or her identification.

Between the powers of the Chief Electoral Officer and the powers contained within Bill C-18, we should have this problem fixed.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Not so fast, Mr. Speaker. The member suggested that this problem was discovered after Bill C-31 was passed, with almost everyone's consent and hard work, and I appreciate the hon. member's hard work on attempting to rectify it by introducing this bill.

What I understand is that although that bill received royal assent in June 2007, in fact the problems had been detected before then. I am a little confused, because the first notice that I would have had was when my hon. colleague, quite in a genteel fashion, suggested that we have an all party meeting on this in the fall of this year.

To be precise, when did it come to the government's attention? The member is a government member, and it is not even the new government anymore; it is the government now. When precisely did it come to the attention of the government that there was this problem with respect to addresses?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my hon. colleague on becoming the new democratic reform critic for the official opposition party. I look forward to working with him on these issues and many more in committee.

I know that the hon. member normally pays rapt attention when I speak in this place, so it is quite unusual that he did not quite get all of my comments in my main address. I did make mention of the fact that it was after the three September byelections held in Quebec that the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer conducted a review to see whether the new provisions contained in Bill C-31 were appropriate. In other words, were the identification requirements proper? Was the list of alternative identifications identified by the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer sufficient?

It was only at that time that the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Monsieur Mayrand, had discovered that there was this gap. It was upon that discovery that we decided to take decisive action.

In fact, I can assure my hon. colleague and my friend that the first time I heard of it personally was in a phone call when I was back in my home riding. They had just received information from the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer that this gap had occurred. They had identified it. Within days I contacted my hon. colleague and the other democratic reform critics from the other opposition parties asking them to get together for a meeting to see if we could come up with the proper wording. Literally within days of that we had introduced the legislation we see before us today.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I almost rose on a question of privilege when my friend referred to me as the new democratic reform critic. I think what he meant was the new critic on democratic reform for my party. It is almost in the way things are said, not what is actually said.

With that in mind, I do want to congratulate the parliamentary secretary. I would have had many questions for him, but I will pose those questions hypothetically to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the public who may be listening.

If this is a housekeeping bill and will cure the problem of a vast number of rural voters being unable to vote now because of a gap in the legislation, and if it is that non-contentious, and if it means so much to enfranchise over a million voters in this country in Liberal, Conservative and other party ridings, then why was it not given higher priority than Bill C-6, which we just debated, which by and large seems to affect an extremely small number of people, which seems to respond to a problem that does not exist?

Why was this legislation not given priority over a number of other bills that have achieved headlines far and wide across the country? Perhaps the answer is in my question itself: because it is better politics to get more press than to do what is right for over a million voters in this country.

Briefly speaking of Bill C-18, it is true that the parliamentary secretary has worked very hard in trying to get all parties together to bridge the gap that exists with respect to so many voters. It is true that discussions were held. It is true that a number of people have been consulted with respect to drafting the bill. But it is equally true that the government has misrepresented the facts which underlie the reason that we are here today.

If everybody had listened intently to the parliamentary secretary and to the Minister for Democratic Reform himself, it would seem that the Conservative Party is riding forth like the knight on the white horse to cure this problem. The truth is they sat on it; they ignored advice that came to their attention, or I guess in a legal standard, should have come to their attention as government earlier on, and I will get to that in a minute.

In announcing that the bill would be introduced, the Minister for Democratic Reform said, “Once again our government is showing real leadership by taking quick, decisive action to strengthen our voting system by addressing the problem of verifying the residence of voters”. I agree with everything there except “real leadership“ and “taking quick, decisive action”. He also said, “The legislative solution introduced today will ensure that legitimate voters will be able to exercise their fundamental democratic right to vote”.

I might remind all members of the House and some on the other side of the lack of fanfare or even notice of the fact that we have a Charter of Rights, and that the Charter of Rights is celebrating its 25th anniversary. I, as a relatively young member of Parliament, am a child of the charter. The charter in section 3, and I bet if I had a quiz on the charter, people could not pick the section that guarantees this right, which is the basis upon which this debate should begin and end, the democratic right of citizens, states that every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein. It is a very short section. I actually counted the words. That section has the fewest words in the whole Charter of Rights, but it is so succinct.

I find it kind of interesting when we look at the democratic reform ethos of the Conservative government how it has been interpreted by the courts has largely been with respect to the rights of inmates and judges to vote. Who would have thought that those two groups would be put together in terms of rights?

There have been significant court cases on whether inmates have the right to vote. People convicted of serious crimes are now determined by our courts to have the right to vote. So fundamental is this right, yet it would seem that the government, in its wisdom, by forging ahead with Bill C-6, might in effect be depriving a few unconvicted, uncharged citizens of this country who profess their religious beliefs of the right to vote, but inmates have the right to vote. I find that a curious turn of events given the government's very strong and strident support of an anti-crime agenda. The irony, of course, is quite delicious.

The other irony in the theme of my discussion and how it is not a case where once again the government is showing real leadership on that white horse is that in fact the Senate of Canada, one of those institutions that the government does not seem to really support, did in fact during its deliberations on Bill C-31 raise questions with respect to the qualification of voters, which as I indicated is guaranteed in the Charter of Rights. A group of senators reviewed the legislation, and let us remind ourselves that the other place has a duty to review legislation passed by the Commons.

We heard the parliamentary secretary for democratic reform in this House stand up and say, “Everybody missed it. Everybody in the Commons, all parties, missed it. It is just a big old mistake and a million people might not be able to vote. We are sorry. We put a whole bunch of bills ahead of this one because we care so much about those million voters in rural Canada who cannot vote. We are going to put a whole bunch of other bills ahead of this one and we are going to blame everybody equally.”

Not so fast. Let us work backward. On June 27, the bill itself, Bill C-31, received royal assent. Prior to that, in the month of May and before that time, the Senate of Canada was wrapping up its hearings. A number of questions were had of the Chief Electoral Officer at that time. Those questions went to identifying individuals who did not have addresses. The Chief Electoral Officer is another person who seems to be on the government's hit list. If we add it up, there are Muslim women and minority communities, the Senate of Canada, and now the Chief Electoral Officer. These are targets of the new government and its parliamentary secretaries, who wield such great power.

My friend who spoke to this bill today should be very mindful that the Chief Electoral Officer offered solutions himself, which came up as a result of the Senate's verification and review of legislation. He wrote, “In light of comments that I have already received”--as a result of Senate hearings--“I am considering broadening the list”--and he referred to identification--“to include attestation letters that could be signed by a person of authority in homeless shelters and student residences. Such letters would establish the residence of the individual and constitute one of the two pieces of identification required under section 143(2)(b)”.

It was also suggested there were problems, generally speaking, in ethnic communities with respect to voter turnout and verification.

He wrote to the questioner:

You had also suggested that Elections Canada should advertise in ethnic media to communicate the requirements for voter identification to the electorate and, in particular, ethnocultural communities. As part of its commitment to communicate clearly with a variety of groups within the electorate, Elections Canada has sought to tailor the information provided to ethnocultural communities.

He went on to describe what Elections Canada in fact had done in the ethnocultural communities and he talked about the attestation letters. The attestation letters prove the point that the Elections Canada officials are doing their job. The attestation letters were an afterthought as a result of the Senate hearings.

What we have is the Chief Electoral Officer, mindful that this is the act under which he is empowered, attempting to accommodate the law as written as a result of a verification and review in the other place. As a result, attestation letters are now, in practice, what prevails for homeless people, people in student dorms and other such facilities.

Would we not think that the question might be that in its thorough review of this legislation the government ought to have addressed the issue of attestation letters and made it, rather than a practice, the law? And would we not think that, and we may get to this when we send this to committee and correct it, in a thorough review, having had the experience of the byelections, the government would make it a priority to fix whatever flaws it had seen in Bill C-31?

In effect, do members not think the minister responsible, who wanted quick and decisive action, and the parliamentary secretary, who lives in a semi-rural riding, might have thought it very important to review what was already on the books in terms of committee work, or does the world for the Conservative government and the officers of democratic reform for the government end when the bill is presented to the Senate?

I suggest, not. I suggest that whatever happens in the Senate in the review of a bill is very much within the purview of the Minister for Democratic Reform. If he were not so busy taking questions for the Prime Minister and other people who are ducking issues, he would probably have time to do that. It also falls within the purview of the parliamentary secretary. He should have reviewed the work done by the Senate.

However, I am not here to defend the Senate on this item. I am here to defend the Chief Electoral Officer, who responded to a Senate inquiry. It is almost as if the democratic reform team over there did not exist. The real work was being done in the trenches by the Chief Electoral Officer and by serious senators who were involved in the review of the legislation.

In summary, it is very important for us to remember that the bill will, when taken to committee and fixed in a number of ways with the leadership that other members of the committee will offer to the bill, attempt to fix a problem that was actually created when it was decided we all must have forms of identification to vote.

If I could be non-partisan for a minute, we have to realize that we made a change when we decided in Bill C-31 that everybody had to show identification to vote. We owe it to ourselves to understand that in some countries this is the case and in others it is not. Clearly with respect to the over million rural voters, it effectively disenfranchised them. One has to ask the question we asked throughout the Bill C-6 debate. What was the problem before? Was there widespread abuse or fraud, concealment of identity or multiple voting in the rural ridings of Canada? I do not recall complaints made to Elections Canada.

It is like Bill C-6 where we do not have a single complaint to Elections Canada about voter fraud. We have the hums and ha's of the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, who may have been driving by and saw people with pumpkins on their heads and somehow this became a very large issue.

What we have in this case is probably what will be the rub of the discussion. The serious rub of the discussion for members of Parliament is whether we will go to full identification, meaning photo identification. Countries in the democratic reform capacity not as sophisticated and not as developed as us have gone to that way. There are countries in west Africa that require photo identification to vote.

We have photo identification and a comparison against it, as said in legislation, to have a passport, which will allow us to enter other countries and to re-enter Canada. We have photo identification required by law by many provinces to have a driver's licence. We have photo identification requirements in many administrative and quasi-administrative instances in the country where government agencies are involved.

Do we want to take that bold grand leap toward photo identification for voting? It is a question with which we must all come to terms, be mature about and decide whether we want that. However, if we do not go there, if we do not jump in that large ocean, then we have to stay on the shore. There is no half-way on this.

It seems to me that whatever happened at Bill C-31, whatever happened in the Commons during the debate and in the Senate during its purview, with the poor Chief Electoral Officer trying to keep the middle ground, we have a situation where we are half wet. We have a situation where the first means of voting is to show one's picture ID, but the law does not say that the returning officer in charge has to compare one's face to the photo ID. It seems to be assumed that people would do that, but after all we are here to make law.

We are not here to just to recount our personal experiences. We are not here to talk about pumpkins at polling stations. We are not here to talk about multiple votes without proof. We are not here to talk about the anecdotes. This is a serious place where laws are made.

If we are to have a debate, the debate should be that if we say photo ID is one way of proving people's ability to exercise their charter right to vote, then we should also say that the photo ID should be compared to people's faces, which requires people to show their face. The law does not say that. Worse, the law goes on to say that the person only has to produce, as a second means of voting, two pieces of ID which have an address on it. As interpreted, those addresses have to concur with the list of electors. That is yet again a situation where no person's face is required to be shown. We are half wet on this issue. It is incongruous and very difficult for the Chief Electoral Officer to be sure that everyone who votes is voting.

Then we have to ask the question about our history. I would think that this particularly applies to rural Canada. In our history do we have such widespread voter fraud and multiple voting situations that we have to go that far? I would think not. What we have to rely on are the principles of trust, that when a Canadian citizen comes to the voting box, then in our heads, as lawmakers, as government officials and as the delegated responsible persons from Elections Canada, we should think of section 3 of the charter, “Every citizen in Canada has the right to vote”. It should be written large in both official languages at every polling station. We should do our utmost as parliamentarians to ensure that has been put into effect.

What has happened here is, in our rush to be half modern and half photogenic, we have said that one has to fit with the other.

On the positive side, the bill will go some way to cure a problem that exists because of our zealous pursuit of attempting to get rural people, our large rural population, to conform perhaps to a metropolitan view of how we identify ourselves. I think it is an identity issue. I think it is an issue that defines us as a nation.

In our country we have had periods in some cases of rapid urbanization and we have had periods of slow urbanization. I submit that in this history of our country, and what better place to do this than in the House, parts of western Canada were rapidly de-ruralized and rural Canada lost a lot of its character in the period which we now know as the dust bowl period.

We know that in periods of economic recession, parts of eastern Canada were denuded of its people. One only has to look at the outport situation in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador to know that people were pulled away from their rural roots.

The process of de-ruralization is occurring much slower in my province and in the rest of the Maritimes, but it is happening. We are becoming, as the last census showed, an urban nation.

What Bill C-31 did was it added insult to injury to rural Canadians by saying, “We are going to apply a city standard to rural Canadians. We are going to apply a metropolitan standard to rural Canadians. You shall be like us”.

What the good part of Bill C-18 suggests is that we are apologizing, as parliamentarians from all sides, to rural Canadians. We are saying that we were a little too hasty, a little too urban in our thought and we apologize. We are saying that rural Canadians have the same rights as we do as guaranteed by section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

Kudos to rural Canada and kudos to Bill C-18. We will fix and add to it, as we will at committee, and it will make good legislation.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member finished the way he did. We hear many things in the House which are specious, disingenuous and condescending. Both being new members in the House, I congratulate my colleague on being such a fast learner.

The member talked about the charter of rights, which everyone upholds. The government also has an obligation, including opposition parties, to ensure that those rights are not abused, which does not suggest for a second that any rural voter has abused those rights. I come from a riding where there was evidence of significant voter fraud during the last two elections. It is important that we uphold the rights of the charter. It is also important for us to ensure that those rights are not abused.

I thank the hon. member for his support for Bill C-6, an important issue which needed to be cleared up by all parties because all parties wanted it.

My colleague, the parliamentary secretary, did point out that all parties cooperated on recovering from an error that was made as an honest mistake by members of all parties. Therefore, there is a lot of blame to share. There is also a lot of credit to share, and the parliamentary secretary did attempt to share that credit with all members of the House.

The member spoke for 20 minutes and the last minute was terrific. The first 19 minutes qualified as those characteristics of parliamentary debate which do not sound good in this place.

Is he going to support this, yes or no? It is important and we all want it. Let us not hold it up. Let us just get on with it, support it and correct what has been done.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I almost rose on a second point of order on the comment that I might have been covering up something. It is not something we do. I am not the new democratic reform for parole, but we support the bill. It will be sent to committee.

Some of the real life situations that have been learned will be melded into the bill. My friend is doing a spectacular job as parliamentary secretary, no doubt because he had good experience in Chatham, New Brunswick. I can see that New Brunswick influence in his work daily. However, I urge him to take his parliamentary secretary job very seriously and realize there is a process in this House, which is bicameral for the moment.

There are an awful lot of committee reports and verification questions through committees that take place in other places. Many officials at Elections Canada have been involved in this issue. As parliamentarians, we all need to realize that our work does not stop when a bill leaves the House. It really only begins because we have to see that our laws are working out there.