My position is that we're trying to fix something that doesn't appear to be broken. Maybe you've heard other evidence that there is prevalent fraud out there. I haven't experienced it on the ground or at the polls. I've spent numerous hours, all day during election day, moving in between polls trying to help people present their statutory declarations to make sure that they are in fact given a ballot.
We're not just swearing statutory declarations willy-nilly for people. We are doing a screening process before we do this. However, our process is a little bit different from what you're doing in the polling stations. I organize people who work in the community, maybe social workers or welfare workers, to come down to our tables to identify these people for us if they have no identification. They've worked with them for years. They know who they are. They're able to, in effect, vouch to me that this person is who they say they are. If we're not able to find someone to identify them, then I get them to go through their pockets. You can be darned sure if someone is carrying around a bail release from the local courthouse, they are who they say they are. People don't carry around those sorts of things unless they are actually theirs. However, if they were to show up to the polling station now, they would be turned away with something like that. That form of identification just wouldn't pass muster.
A solution to this would be to have someone in the polling station with Elections Canada who has the same authority that I and the other lawyers have to use their discretion to do a bit of an interview with the person. Maybe they've come in with someone from the street who can identify them, or they can produce some form of identification such as a prescription bottle or welfare stub or that sort of thing. They can take the oath themselves.