Bill C-50 (Historical)

Citizen Voting Act

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to
(a) eliminate the international register of electors and incorporate all of the information contained in it into the Register of Electors;
(b) require electors who are resident outside Canada to make an application for registration and special ballot after the issue of the writs at each election;
(c) stipulate that electors who are resident outside Canada may only receive a special ballot for the address at which they last resided in Canada;
(d) require that electors who are applying for a special ballot under Division 3 or 4 of Part 11 include in their application for registration and special ballot proof of identity and residence and, if they apply from outside Canada, proof of Canadian citizenship;
(e) require that an external auditor perform an audit and report on election workers’ compliance with special ballot voting procedures and requirements for every election;
(f) authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with information for the purpose of assisting the Chief Electoral Officer to, among other things, delete from the Register of Electors the names of persons who are not Canadian citizens; and
(g) add the offence of voting or attempting to vote by special ballot under Division 3 or 4 of Part 11 while knowing that one is not qualified as an elector and add offences under those Divisions of attesting to the residence of more than one elector and of acting as an attestor when one’s own residence has already been attested to.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

All right.

The first question related to the international register of electors. What we propose is to fold its contents into the general voters list. That is because the whole basis of this bill is that we would treat international electors the in same way as special voting electors. In other words, if you have a family member who votes from Florida while they're away as a snowbird, their name is in the basic voters list. As a result of the citizen voting act, an elector who permanently resides in Florida would have the same practice in casting their ballot as your relative who's a snowbird. They'll be following the same rules and the same procedures, and therefore, we propose they be part of the same list. The contents of the international register of electors are not being destroyed; they are simply being put into the voters list, where we have one list instead of two.

The second question dealt with the requirement that a ballot be ordered after the writ is dropped. We haven't found this to be a problem with special voting so far.

Mr. Christopherson, for many years people have voted from all around the world using what's called a special ballot, because they're residents of Canada but happen to be abroad during the election period. They have been very successful at ordering a ballot, receiving it, and casting it by mail before election day. I haven't seen a reason we need to change that. The rule will remain as it has always been, that a ballot is ordered once the writ is dropped and cast before the close of election day.

For your third question, the special voting rule, could you remind me what the actual question was?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister for Democratic Reform]

Thank you very much, everyone, for having me here today. Before I begin my remarks, I would like to introduce Isabelle Mondou and Natasha Kim, both of whom work in the Privy Council Office. They are exceptional public servants and they know more about all of these subjects than I do. I'm very pleased to have them at the table with me. I feel assured to have them at my side.

Without any further ado, Mr. Chair, it's a pleasure to address the committee on the citizen voting act. The bill will strengthen Canada's democracy by reinforcing the integrity of the special ballot voting system and ensuring fairness for resident and non-resident votes. The citizen voting act proposes to reform the vote by mail procedures set out in divisions 3 and 4 of the special voting rules of the Canada Elections Act.

The last major update to these procedures was back in 1993. The citizen voting act is in keeping with the government's objective to strengthen the integrity of our electoral process. It builds on the rules enacted by the Fair Elections Act in June of 2014, a bill with which I know all of you are deeply familiar.

The citizen voting act proposes six key measures to reform the special voting rules in the Canada Elections Act and proposes objectives of integrity and fairness.

First, the proposed legislation creates a single process for residents and non-residents who vote by special ballot. Special ballot voting procedures applicable to resident and non-resident electors will be harmonized. Non-resident voters will no longer automatically receive a ballot at election time, mitigating the risk that ballots will end up with unintended recipients. The citizen voting act requires that non-resident electors wishing to vote by special ballot must apply for one at each election, just as resident electors do now.

Second, the bill stipulates non-resident electors will only receive a ballot for the address at which they last resided in Canada. Non-resident electors will no longer be allowed to choose the riding in which they wish to vote.

Third, the bill builds on the Fair Elections Act by requiring all electors voting by special ballot, both residents and non-residents, include in the application proof of identity and residence according to the rules that are similar to those set up in the Fair Elections Act. At the moment, proof of residence in Canada is not required for non-residents. This shortcoming will be remedied, and as with other Canadians, proof of prior residence will be required for expatriate voters.

Under the citizen voting act, resident and non-resident electors voting under the special voting rules will have the same three voter identification options available in order to cast their ballots: a government-issued photo identification with name and address; two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer, one with an address and both with a name; or two pieces of authorized identification with an oath or declaration of residence that is attested to by another properly identified elector from the same riding.

Fourth, the proposed legislation requires that electors voting from outside of Canada provide proof of citizenship. Currently, providing proof of citizenship is required administratively by Elections Canada for non-resident electors. The citizen voting act makes this a legislative requirement, including for resident voters temporarily outside of the country.

Fifth, the citizen voting act extends the special ballot voting procedures to the mandatory post-election audit that was introduced in the Fair Elections Act. As you will recall, we required that the Chief Electoral Officer appoint an auditor to ensure identification rules were administered in the course of a general election. That mandatory audit was to apply to domestic voting. The citizen voting act will see to it that it also applies to those voting from outside of the country. To this end, the Chief Electoral Officer will be required to engage an external auditor to carry it out, and he will also be required to report the results of this audit. The audit will look into election workers' compliance with resident and non-resident special voting procedures after every election.

Finally, the citizen voting act adds a new provision authorizing the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with information such as the name, gender, date of birth, and address of persons who are not Canadian citizens, for the purpose of cross-referencing registrants in the national register of electors. This is to assist in deleting the names of non-residents from the register who are not qualified to vote. This suggestion came to me from the Chief Electoral Officer. He was concerned that there are people on the voter list who are not citizens, and one of the ways that Elections Canada can identify these non-citizens and remove them from the list is by having data on the identity of non-citizens who reside within Canada. So we have agreed to his suggestion and with the passage of this bill, we will permit the immigration minister to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with that data.

Before concluding my remarks to the committee, I would like to report that, following consultations with Elections Canada, and after looking at some of the issues that were raised during the debate in the House of Commons, the government will be proposing seven minor amendments to the citizen voting act.

First, the current bill provides that the Chief Electoral Officer may authorize types of identification issued by, among others, an entity that is “formed in Canada”. This ensures that identification documents must always be Canadian documents and thus reinforces the integrity of the identification procedure. Moreover, foreign-issued identification is likely to be harder to verify, and in some cases, it could be in another language. This requirement raises concerns that it would be difficult to determine whether an entity is Canadian. In particular, it has been argued that it would be difficult for poll officials to make such a determination.

We have noted the concerns and will be proposing to limit the application of this requirement to only electors voting by special ballot under divisions 3 and 4. This means that front-line officials at the polls will not have to evaluate whether a piece of identification was issued by an entity formed in Canada. Rather, this determination will mainly be required when Elections Canada reviews the identification documents provided by electors with their applications for special ballot prior to election day. In other words, it will apply to those voting by mail and those voting outside of the country, but not at the voting booth.

Elections Canada has access to more resources and will have more time than poll officials to assess whether pieces of identification have been issued by a Canadian entity. I believe this amendment will ensure not only that electors voting by special ballot provide Canadian identification to prove their identity and residence, but also that it will be easier for election officials to verify the acceptability of such identification.

Second, another concern that has been raised relates to the requirement in Bill C-50, the citizen voting act, that residents wishing to vote by special ballot using the attestation procedure to prove residency must obtain an attestation from another elector from the same polling division. For those listening who are not familiar with the complexity of local voting, there are electoral districts that each elect one member of Parliament, but within those districts are polling divisions that break down the voting locations where people go to cast their ballots. The reason that the distinction is important is that it is much more difficult to find an attestor who lives in the same polling division or even to know if that voter lives in the same polling division if you are voting from outside of the country and you are resident abroad. This is not a problem when you're actually voting at the polling division location because you're physically there and the person attesting is physically with you, and they would know very well if they are at their appropriate location.

That brings me to the proposed amendment.

Because the requirement would be problematic, we would seek to change the requirement for the fact that the boundaries of the polling divisions are not published by the Elections Canada website until 24 days before the polling day. To facilitate the process, we will propose an amendment to allow non-resident electors voting by special ballot to obtain an attestation from an elector from the same electoral district instead. In other words, anyone living in the same district would be able to act as the attestor for the non-resident voter lacking proof of prior address. They will not have to be from the same polling division. These electors will therefore be able to kick-start the registration process from the day the election is called.

The third amendment that we propose, Mr. Chair, relates also to the attestation process. Bill C-50 currently provides that as part of the attestation, resident and non-resident electors voting by special ballot may sign a declaration to prove their residence instead of taking the oath. Those who attest to the residence of an elector who are abroad may also sign a declaration instead of taking an oath. An amendment will be proposed to clarify that the declarations signed by attestors from abroad will not need to be administered by another person. Signing a declaration will be sufficient to prove or to attest to the residence of an elector. This will simplify the process for electors and attestors abroad.

The fourth proposed amendment relates to the proof of citizenship that electors voting by special ballot would have to provide, if making their application from outside Canada. We will clarify the language to specify that proof of citizenship is required when the ballot is being sent outside of the country rather than to special ballot voters within the country.

The fifth amendment relates to post-election audit. Bill C-50 proposes to extend the audit to include voting by special ballot and to give the auditor access to all documents necessary to perform the audit. A technical amendment will be proposed to ensure that the auditor has access to all documents necessary to perform the audit for voting at the polls as well.

Sixth, an amendment will be tabled to mitigate the risk of a voter identification card being sent to Canadians at an address at which they no longer live, which would increase the risk of such cards falling into the hands of people who are not eligible to vote in our elections. This technical amendment will provide that all non-residents will not receive a voter information card. Under clause 3 of the bill as currently drafted, that exception would apply only to some non-residents.

As amendment number 7, finally, we will propose an amendment for resident electors who vote in person through special ballot initiatives. For example, such initiatives could be held at hospitals, universities, or at remote work locations, as has been done in the past. An amendment will enable those electors, like electors who vote at the polls, to present an original piece of identification, and not only copies, as is currently provided by Bill C-50.

I hope that committee members will support these amendments. I believe they are sensible and that they are consistent with the goal of the bill.

I can just wrap up by highlighting the principle at stake here.

Mr. Chair, we believe that people should provide ID when they vote. This ID should show who they are, where they reside, and in the case of people living abroad, where they used to reside. Those people voting outside of the country should be required to prove that they're Canadian citizens. The Constitution does give every Canadian the right to vote, but that right is predicated on citizenship—explicitly predicated on citizenship—and so too should be the identification requirement for those who are casting a ballot from outside Canada's borders.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Folks, we'll go ahead and get started. We have the minister here today. Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, May 4, we have Bill C-50, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act.

Minister, it's always great when you can come visit committee. I understand you have an opening statement and will be sharing some stuff with us. Please go ahead and introduce your guests and do your opening statement. We'll get to rounds to questions after that.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have a question. When is the minister coming in on Bill C-50?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

I'm wondering if I could ask you a question, Professor Pilon. You were very gracious in just summarizing your paper, assuming that we've all read it. I think we have, but those following these proceedings might not have.

One of the two sets of concerns you had was about the inconsistent application of rules. You indicated that in the literature put out with this Bill C-50, the so-called citizen voting act, the government argues that its citizen voting act “will ensure that Canadians living abroad follow the same rules as those living in Canada.” On that claim by the government, you're absolutely right, that's what the minister claimed and that's what all their literature said.

Is that an accurate claim?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Along that line, one of the changes in this is to have electors who are voting outside of Canada provide proof of citizenship. That's something that has already been required administratively by Elections Canada for some time, I believe. The citizen voting act would simply make that common practice, enshrined in law.

Do you see any problem with having someone who's living outside of Canada proving that they're a Canadian citizen in order to vote? Do you see any issue with that?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you.

There's one thing Mr. Simms and I can agree on, and it's the difficulty of having to follow Mr. Christopherson. I'm glad he was able to bring us slowly back towards reality a little bit. Mr. Christopherson can take off his tinfoil hat and we can look at the reality of the matter here. People can cast all kinds of aspersions on the reason for something, but at the end of the day, obviously, the purpose of this legislation is to be able to ensure that there's fairness, to be able to ensure that the same requirements are in place for non-resident voters who are voting by special ballot as for those who are resident Canadians when they're voting by special ballot, in terms of having a process that's fair and equal for all.

I just wanted to ask a couple of questions to you, Professor Lee, because I know you seemed to be fairly rushed to get through some of your opening remarks, and maybe didn't get chance to focus on Bill C-50 as much as I'm sure you would have liked to. I'd like to come to you on that with that very principle, the idea of ensuring fairness and creating a single process for both residents and non-residents who want to vote by special ballot. I want to get your comments on that. Obviously the change being made here is that rather than automatically being sent a ballot at the beginning of an election, and that ballot ending up somewhere it shouldn't be, this will require a non-resident voter to apply for a special ballot, just as the average resident Canadian would have to do.

What are your thoughts on that? Do you think that's a fair change?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you all very much for your attendance.

Under the heading of “voter suppression”, the first thing you find is Bill C-50, because that's really what this is all about in our opinion. It's a continuation of the suppression clauses that have been incorporated into our election laws.

I want to make reference to the Chief Electoral Officer. Remember that fellow, the one whom the government didn't consult when they brought all the changes to the “unfair elections act”. He came back to talk about Bill C-50, and one of the things that's been missed, and I don't think it was picked up in the public domain through the media, is that the change in clause 4 of Bill C-50 adds proposed paragraph 143(2.11)(b) to the Canada Elections Act. It incorporates a change. So far we've been focusing on the ID at the polling station as if it only affected foreign patriots voting who live abroad, but the fact remains that this change would change the entire Canada Elections Act.

This is the clause that's causing all the concern. It says, “an entity that is incorporated or formed by or under an Act of Parliament or of the legislature of a province or”—and this is the key thing—“that is otherwise formed in Canada.” Nobody knows what that means.

The change, if this passed, would not just be for voting abroad. It would be for all voters. Monsieur Mayrand said:

I am, however, concerned with the fact that the bill will make it more difficult for electors abroad to vote, and I expect that many will not be able to do so under the new rules. I am also very concerned with the new requirement that pieces of ID be issued by entities incorporated or “formed in Canada”—a criterion that is unclear and that cannot be administered by election officers. I urge the committee to consider this aspect of the bill, and also to consider other changes set out in the table....

We have our Chief Electoral Officer suggesting this is a real problem and he would like it removed. I wonder, Professor Pal, if you'd be kind enough to comment on that, because you did touch on this a bit, this whole aspect of the confusion it will cause. Would you confirm that your interpretation is that it does change the Canada Elections Act, and that these concerns at the voting station won't just happen outside Canada but could potentially happen in every polling station in Canada? Do you agree with that interpretation, sir?

[Professor Michael Pal, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you very much to the committee for having me here to speak on this important bill. I'm a law professor at the University of Ottawa where I teach constitutional law and election law. You're all invited to come and speak to my class, if you'd like, down the road.

I'm going to give you a very different perspective than Professor Lee. You would have thought the law professor would be the one quoting Hobbes and Foucault, but instead I'm going to speak to the constitutionality of Bill C-50, particularly the rules on registration and on voter identification for overseas voters.

In my opinion, and I wish it was otherwise, the bill as currently written is unconstitutional for violating section 3, which is of course the guarantee of the right to vote in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It's unconstitutional because it substantially burdens the rights of all citizens, no matter where they live, all Canadian citizens, to be able to cast a ballot.

I would also add that I don't believe Bill C-50 is actually in the spirit of the Frank decision. Frank, of course, struck down the rule preventing those overseas for five years or more from voting, so it actually expanded voting rights.

My fear with Bill C-50 is that the House may inadvertently be doing indirectly what the courts have said it cannot do directly. The House of Commons cannot deprive people, ban them from voting. But if the rules are so onerous as to make it nearly impossible to be able to cast a ballot, then the effect is the same.

The relevant sections here for overseas voters, in particular, that raise a constitutional dimension are those that require individuals to register at each election and only once the writ has been dropped, and then the voter ID requirements from the Fair Elections Act being applied here.

Requiring registration only after the writ is dropped is a recipe for denying the right to vote to Canadian citizens. The timelines are extremely tight and I know there has been some discussion at the committee about Canada Post and how long it takes to go back and forth. Once you factor in applying to register, the approval by Elections Canada, and then sending your ballot in, it can become very difficult to get it in on time. It's not impossible, but we shouldn't have to be lucky to be able to exercise our constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. I fear that is what this bill would do.

I would just draw the committee's attention to the recent British election, which also had extensive postal balloting of hundreds of thousands of people, and an article from The Guardian. It said that 113,000 people applied to vote by post, and overseas voters raised concerns they did not receive their ballots in time. We often look to the United Kingdom as a shining example of democracy and here even through best efforts postal voting can be deeply problematic.

Second, to turn to the ID requirements, the driver's licence is, of course, the document that has both your identification and your residence on it. Of those who live overseas, however, or in the United States but are Canadian citizens, very few will actually have an incentive to keep their driver's licence or documents that prove their identification and residence.

I know the committee has had a discussion in Bill C-23 about ID requirements, so all I would add is that for overseas voters, however onerous the ID requirements are for Canadians living in Canada, for Canadians living abroad they're likely to be even more onerous. Why would you keep all those pieces of ID that you might potentially need in order to vote because you probably don't need them for any other reason?

To turn to the constitutionality explicitly, the courts have consistently expanded the right to vote since we've had the charter. The Sauvé decision granted prisoners the right to vote. Cases have also granted the mentally ill the right to vote. Frank, from the Ontario Superior Court—and we'll see what the court of appeal has to say and then potentially the Supreme Court—was absolutely in that tradition. If one is a citizen, any restriction on the right to vote has to be very clearly justified by the government.

The question here is: what is the justification? I believe, as Professor Pilon said, we don't have good evidence of widespread fraud that would lead us to say we should limit the right to vote of those who are non-residents. I would ask the committee to weigh the very direct and concrete harm that's likely to result for Canadians living outside of the country, making it very difficult for them to vote, versus the relatively abstract goal of trying to prevent fraud.

We all agree preventing fraud and electoral integrity are important, but without evidence that this fraud is actually occurring we are potentially creating a real harm through Bill C-50.

To conclude, I would say the timing of registration is something that could easily be fixed. I know Mr. Kingsley said 30 days. Why not a year or perhaps even longer? You could register at any time potentially in between elections and I think that would be administratively possible.

If attestation as to residence is still going to be required, we should perhaps look at why the person who is attesting for you has to have lived in the same riding as you, because that is potentially artificial restriction that may not mean much on the ground and might restrict the right to vote.

Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to your questions.

[Dr. Ian Lee, Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual]

Thank you for inviting me to once again address what I have characterized as the most astonishing urban legend in Canadian public policy in the 35 years that I've studied public policy.

This urban legend claims that large, significant, or substantial numbers of Canadians lack any ID whatsoever, thereby disenfranchising them from voting. As a former banker deeply familiar with identification systems, I know that the principle of banking goes back to ancient times of “know thy customer” and is grounded in the idea that you can't collect money from someone if you don't know who it is you lent the money to. Therefore, identity and identification have been at the very core of financial systems for thousands of years, and it's only the rest of society, as we've moved into the digital economy, that is realizing what bankers have always understood.

First, I found that no critic had undertaken a systematic empirical review of all major identification systems in Canada using the government reports of the government departments that issue the ID in Canada: Passport Canada, Transport Canada, and so forth. I presented the empirical evidence of these systems both to your committee and the Senate committee in April 2014, and that became the basis of my op-ed published in The Globe and Mail on May 4, 2014, “Canadians who can't vote because they lack any ID? Don't believe it.”

I testified to you and in the op-ed...and I'm just going to summarize this very quickly.

Canadians possess over 200 million pieces of identification or identification documents including birth certificates, as the vital statistics acts of every province compel the registration of every birth in every province. StatsCan reports 29 million people in Canada were born in Canada, with 6.7 million people foreign born.

In Canada there are 29 million birth certificates. There are 22 million drivers' licences—not the 15 million stated by Mr. Mayrand—per the annual Transport Canada report to Parliament. There are 29 million cars and trucks registered in Canada per the Transport Canada report to Parliament, each with an ownership certificate disclosing name and address. It's the same for insurance certificates, and there are nearly 35 million health care cards, as every province requires a health card to access a doctor, a clinic, or a hospital.

According to StatsCan, 69% of Canadians, or 9.2 million, own their own home. Under provincial law, real estate ownership must be in writing with name and address disclosed. Likewise for rentals, 31% of Canadians rent, and under landlord and tenant acts, the name and address must be disclosed in writing in the tenancy.

Per the FCAC established by Parliament, 96% of Canadians have a bank account, and the Bank Act passed by Parliament requires two pieces of primary government-issued ID to open a bank account.

StatsCan 2013 reports that 17.5 million Canadians filed taxable returns with, of course, name and address, while another 8.9 million Canadians filed non-taxable returns to get the GST rebate and so forth, a total of 26.3 million filers. Per StatsCan, in 2014 two million Canadians boarded planes requiring ID three times: once at check-in, once at security, and once at the gate. Per Passport Canada, 70% of Canadians, or 23 million, have a passport. Per the Canadian Bankers Association, there are 71 million credit cards outstanding in Canada.

I'll wrap up very quickly. As the French philosopher Michel Foucault taught us in 1978 in his astonishing article on governmentality, government departments and agencies have been studying, measuring, analyzing, and collecting data on us over very long periods of time in every area of life in western countries from health care to hospitals, to educational institutions, to penal institutions, to security, to borders, to agriculture, to drug use, to seniors' housing, and on and on.

In other words, and I said this before and I'll say it again to you, it is legally and factually impossible today in Canada to be digitally invisible with zero identity of any kind in any database anywhere. The Frank court decision has added an estimated 1.5 million eligible voters abroad.

I support Bill C-50 as Parliament must act to establish a level playing field with respect to voting in federal elections so that voters abroad vote under the same rules as domestic voters. In summary, in a modern, complex society, identity and identification are absolutely essential. The nostalgia for 19th-century voting systems in a far smaller and simpler time simply does not work.

Finally, to the trust issue, to quote the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, if we all really are angels and never do anything wrong, they why do we lock our doors at night? Restated, why do we need ID to board a plane if none of us are terrorists?

Thank you.

[Dr. Joanna Woo, Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute for Astronomy, ETH Zürich, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for inviting me to describe to you my experience of voting in Canadian elections from abroad and how Bill C-50 would impact me.

I consider it both a privilege and a responsibility to participate in the democratic process of my country. That's why I'm here before you today, and that's why I have voted in every federal election since I've been old enough to vote, including the elections that were called while I've been away from Canada for educational and professional reasons.

While studying in Israel, I was on the international register of electors and voted a few times from there. To my dismay, I was then removed because of the five-year rule, so I closely followed the Frank case and was thrilled when that five-year rule was struck down last year. Having since taken up a postdoc position here in Switzerland, I started preparing a new registration with my spouse, who is also Canadian.

The instructions on Elections Canada's website, as well as the registration form itself, indicated that the forms should be returned either by fax or by mail, but oddly there was no email option. I first tried the fax machine, but it returned an error message dated July 14, 2014, last year. The next day, July 15, we sent both our applications in the same envelope by snail mail, since there was plenty of time still before the next election.

I didn't hear back from Elections Canada until October 15, in other words, three months later. I have since learned that email registrations are allowed, even though this is not advertised. Had we sent them by email, or had the fax machine worked properly, two or three weeks may have been saved but not months.

The email correspondence from Elections Canada that I received on October 15 indicated that they had received my application and that it was missing my proof of identity. I'm positive we had sent copies of our passports, but it was not a big deal to send them again, especially since this time they indicated we could send them by email.

Within a week, they confirmed by email that they had received our passport copies and added us to the international register of electors. Perhaps we really did forget to include our passport copies, and somehow this caused some months of delay. However, even after they confirmed they had all our documents, while I received my confirmation in the mail within two weeks, my spouse only received his hard copy at New Year's, in other words, two months later.

In total, the entire process until we received physical mail from Elections Canada took almost four months for me, and almost six months for my spouse. When I registered in Israel a few years ago, even though I don't have the exact dates, I also recall that the process was not particularly rapid.

Over the last 20 years, the length of all but one election campaign was less than 40 days. Under the new rules proposed by Bill C-50, we would have to register for every election and only after an election is called. Given the length of the process we experienced, these rules would make it impossible for me and my spouse to vote. In light of this, I implore the committee to find some way to modify Bill C-50 to make it more feasible for us Canadians living abroad to exercise our democratic rights.

Here I offer some humble suggestions that would greatly help us.

First, Elections Canada should make it clear on its website and its registration forms that email registrations are possible and encouraged.

Second, it would be of obvious help if Bill C-50 were changed so that registrations can be sent outside of an election period. If for some reason Parliament feels that we need to register for every election, I think we could live with that, but at least give us ample time to do so. For example, a year in advance of an election may be sufficient, although since elections are sometimes called early, it would be better if we could register any time between elections.

Third, if for some reason this is not possible, it would be a huge help if snail mail were completely removed from the process. Currently, snail mail is required twice: once when Elections Canada sends the voting kit to the voter abroad, and again when the voter sends the completed ballot back. Both of these steps could be removed if we could vote at Canadian consulates and embassies, for example. Other countries, such as the United States and many EU countries, have made such arrangements for their citizens abroad. Many of them even allow voting at their consulates all the way up to election day. I'm sure Canada could make similar arrangements in such a way as to eliminate the delay of snail mail, while still confirming voters' identities and ridings, allowing us to cast a ballot.

In summary, the process that my spouse and I recently experienced in order to register to vote was much longer than the normal length of an election period. Thus, Bill C-50, as proposed, would make it impossible for us to vote.

Canada is my only citizenship and the only country I'm allowed to vote in. I implore the committee to ensure that this is not taken away from me.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Alexandrine Latendresse]

We are resuming our 83rd meeting.

Today, we are continuing our consideration of Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act. The four witnesses will have five minutes each to make a presentation. Afterwards, the members of the committee will be able to ask them questions.

By video conference, we will hear from Mr. Pilon and Ms. Woo. I will give them the floor first, just in case we experience any technical difficulties. We will then go to Mr. Pal and Mr. Lee.

I now give the floor to Professor Pilon.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Very good, thank you.

In the time I have left I want to come back to Bill C-50. It now says that if you're voting abroad, you can apply to be put on the list to be considered to vote only after the writ is dropped. If you wouldn't mind, it's obvious, but I'd like to hear you say why that is problematic. Second, can you think of anything that is broken that this would fix?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks again, Mr. Kingsley. It's always good to see you and I appreciate your pearls of wisdom. They help us.

One of the concerns that Mr. Mayrand identified, and I'm coming back to something that's already come up, is the issue of changing the language. What we need to understand in this, and I'm not quite sure that it's out there in the public domain in its fulsomeness, is that the changes to what's acceptable voter ID are not just for voters voting abroad. The changes that are being made in Bill C-50 will affect every single polling station in Canada.

That's why Mr. Mayrand said in his analysis of that particular aspect that there “will be no way for deputy returning officers or those receiving applications for special ballots to readily ascertain whether an entity is incorporated in or otherwise formed in Canada”, because that's the new change. “The restriction is likely to cause confusion at the polls on the part of election officers, candidates' representatives and voters.” His recommendation was that the provision be deleted from the bill.

Again I remind all of us that I'm speaking to the change that Bill C-50 causes, which will affect every single voter, every single polling station, and it's this business of a piece of ID. The CEO may authorize only pieces of identification that have been issued by—and this is one of them:

an entity that is incorporated or formed by an Act of Parliament or of the legislature of a province or that is otherwise formed in Canada.

Nobody yet can tell us what that means. It'll be interesting to see what the minister says when he arrives, but I assume you agree that this doesn't work and that it's problematic.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I know that when you were Chief Electoral Officer, particularly in 2006—and you did mention this in some of your remarks—you spoke quite a bit during that time about non-resident voting limits. I'm sure you're well aware that many other jurisdictions actually do place limits on non-resident voting. There are provinces and territories where most, if not all of them, not only have general residency requirements but also require a minimum period of being an ordinary resident before voting.

I'm just trying to get a better sense here because I think, when you look at Bill C-50, that it's clear that the intent is to fix what we would see as a fundamental unfairness in the system between resident and non-resident voters. I'm trying to get a better sense as to what exactly your issue is here with creating that fairness between resident and non-resident voters.