Good evening, honourable members. Thanks for the opportunity.
My name is John Rae, I've been 41 years in the disability rights movement in Canada. I currently serve as first vice-chair of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. I understand you had a good session with some of my colleagues in Winnipeg last night. Tonight I appear as an individual to raise a number of topics.
I'll make three points. Number one, it is desirable that more Canadians participate by voting. I support that. However, I do believe the idea of mandatory voting would be disproportionately a problem for the disabled community, so I oppose it. What we do need, though, is to be more engaged in the electoral process. That requires additional amendments to the Elections Act to cover topics that are not currently included, things like mandatory requirement for accessible offices, accessible campaigning, all-candidates' meetings where sign language and interpretation will be the rule and not the rare exception, and so forth.
Point number two is a challenge. I have attended numerous meetings on the question of electoral reform and rarely, if ever, is the word “disability” even breathed let alone given any kind of serious consideration by those who are proponents of electoral reform. It is argued that a new system will bring more women into Parliament. It's hard for anyone to oppose that idea. I certainly support it. But if we're really talking about making our Parliament more representative of what our country looks like, then I challenge you, your colleagues, your research staff, to develop a system that will bring our percentage, which is 15% to 20% of the population, more in line in Parliament than we currently occupy.
Point number three. You who are currently temporarily sited can verify how you voted before you leave the poll. I can't. That directly discriminates against me. That's why people like me are so passionately supporting additional ways of voting, whether that be an electronic machine, online, or telephone voting.
Elections Canada has often asked me to prescribe which one I prefer. My issue is outcome, not so much approach. Any of those will do the job. Anything less than fixing that part of the discriminatory electoral system we currently have will simply continue barriers to the participation of persons with disabilities to this country. I submit in 2016, that is unacceptable.
Thank you.