Evidence of meeting #35 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
(Clause 18 as amended agreed to)
(Clauses 19 and 20 agreed to)
(On clause 21)
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
On clause 21, colleagues, there are a number of amendments proposed by a number of parties. In the order in which they appear in the bill, you will find on page 23 amendment G-7.
Do we have a mover?
I see Mr. Lukiwski's hand up. Would you care to speak to the amendment?
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's fairly self-explanatory. We want to make sure, again, with the discussion we heard on this issue, with the underlying theme that we're trying to prevent voter fraud, that we're trying to get proper identification. So we had discussed, as this motion contemplates, that two pieces of identification are required, which are authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer, both of which must have the elector's name, but only one requires the address.
As we talked about before, someone can have a driver's licence and then, as a second piece of corroborating documentation, a utility bill that has the person's name and address. It's just to try to tighten up the process to ensure that the people registering to vote are who they say they are.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
12:40 p.m.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Perhaps Mr. Lukiwski could talk about this, but I have some reservations. Do you remember in the last election that people presented as proof of address a postage label from their copies of Chatelaine, L'actualité or Time Magazine? I fear this is opening the door to this type of situation. There is nothing to say these magazines weren't stolen from a mailbox or taken from the entrance of a building.
The goal is commendable. The purpose of Mr. Lukiwski's presentation is to control fraud. We talk about minimizing it, even eliminating it, but how will this wording ensure that postage labels will not be used as proof of address?
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
I saw Mr. Reid's hand up first, but if you want to respond and Mr. Reid's comfortable with that, I'm happy to let you do it.
Thank you, Mr. Reid, and then we'll come back to you.
Mr. Lukiwski.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
The key point here is the identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer. I'm not sure Maclean's magazine would be a piece of information authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer. Utility bills, on the other hand, and other documentation of similar nature would be.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
I think Monsieur Guimond has a good point. One has to be very careful about these things.
The approach I would take on it is, first of all, to reiterate what Mr. Lukiwski said, but in a bit more detail. The Chief Electoral Officer has submitted a list of possible items to us. He said he'll come back to this committee and has even given us a timeline by which he'll come back to this committee for our approval, and he won't approve any document unless this committee approves it.
Obviously there is a fairly long list of things that we would all like to keep off that list of approved items, and I'm inclined to think that renewal notices for magazines would be one of the things I would be unenthusiastic about adding to the list. I think we can control that.
That's one thing. The second thing, though, is the rationale for putting this in, and the rationale is this. I asked some of the witnesses who were here a week ago a question. I remember the student representative, for example; I asked, what about your student ID, if you had that? It has your photo; it's issued by a quasi-governmental authority, a university or a community college; it's designed to prevent fraud—likewise a bus pass. These are things that most students have—probably both. They certainly would have one.
It doesn't have your address on it, but it does have your photo, and it's a pretty secure document. These are documents designed to prevent person A from taking an exam on behalf of person B, or person A getting on a bus instead of person B. So they are inherently anti-fraud-based pieces of identification.
If we included that, I asked, would it eliminate the concerns you have about students being excluded from voting by our ID requirements? He said yes, and at that point I promised to raise the matter with the Chief Electoral Officer.
When I raised it with Mr. Kingsley, he said he didn't interpret the list of identification to include those kinds of pieces of ID as acceptable ID. He went on and actually listed that passports wouldn't count, or military identification cards, and so on.
This is meant to ensure that Mr. Kingsley will now be including this kind of identification as identification for the second of the two provisions in clause 21. So it would be “two pieces of identification establishing the elector's name and address”, authorized by him. Now his list will be able to include, for that purpose, pieces of identification such as the photo student card, photo bus ID, passports, and so on.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Karen Redman Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I guess I'm looking for clarification. It involves concerns around the amendment I entered on behalf of my party. If we deal with this one—mine is after line 24 on page 8—I'm just wondering whether we can deal with mine in the same spirit, as being inclusive rather than exclusive. This is something our members of the Far North, who have large aboriginal populations, feel very strongly they'd like to have dealt with.
Can I just get clarification that after we dispose of the government motion, we will indeed still be able to deal with mine?
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
I intend to do exactly that, yes.
Are there any further comments on government amendment G-7? Mr. Proulx.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
We're on G-7. Clause 21 refers to section 143, and if we go in that clause to proposed subsection 143(7), it specifies that:
The Chief Electoral Officer shall publish each year, and within three days after the issue of a writ, in a manner that he or she considers appropriate, a notice setting out the types of identification
How does that connect with the fact in G-7 that “the Chief Electoral Officer may authorize as a piece of identification for the purposes of”...and adding (b)? We already have in proposed subsection 143(7) that he's going to tell us what is acceptable, so we don't need it in this particular amendment, then.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Actually, I asked him. You may remember that in his testimony last Thursday he listed off items he said he didn't think would qualify. Passports were one of them. It doesn't have your address on it so I can't count it under proposed paragraph (b), one of the two pieces of identification, but it also can't be counted under proposed paragraph (a) because it doesn't have your address either. So this was meant to allow that kind of identification, which is pretty secure, along with something that has your address.
To answer Karen's question, she said like a utility bill, and the answer to that would be that if the Chief Electoral Officer, with the concurrence of this committee, agrees that a utility bill counts, it does; and if he doesn't and we don't, then it wouldn't count.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
So the gist of this amendment is not to look at what's authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer, but rather to say that at least one has to carry the address, instead of both. That's the gist of this.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Yes. You see, he was going to interpret it to say that he would not ever look at these pieces of ID, that they would never make it to his list.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Are there other comments?
We'll call the question then, please.
(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear
Let's move to NDP-4. I will note, members, that you will find this amendment on page 25 of your package. It does have several consequential amendments to follow. But I will open the floor for Mr. Dewar, please.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Chair, I would like to move the amendment NDP-4.
We heard from witnesses not only what the practice is presently but also concerns about what the barriers might be to some of our most vulnerable citizens with the bill as it was written.
What this does is take a look at other jurisdictions' practices and simply look at best practices and employ them here. So all we're doing here is allowing a statutory declaration to be made by an elector so that he might exercise his franchise. I was very careful to ask all of the witnesses who provided statements around the concerns they had with students, those who are low income, those who are new Canadians, etc., if in fact they thought this would be a good thing, something to help those populations they deal with on a daily basis; and to a person, they said yes, this would help.
I think it's incumbent upon us to make sure.... And I provided the committee with a copy of what is presently in place in other jurisdictions.
It is also noted that this is an oath, and obviously something that could be held to account simply because it's asking someone to take an oath. It's a statement of claim. It's a declaration, and it is something that is going to be declared before someone else. So it's not something that is without accountability. It's not without a manner in which we can trace things.
So I think it's for all of those reasons. It's because of the fact that we had concerns from witnesses that, the way the bill is written presently, there was a gap and it would disenfranchise people. So it was simply to say, if this is the case, what's the solution? The solution, in my opinion, is this amendment, and that's why I would ask for support from this committee on this amendment.
Thank you, Chair.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Thank you, Chair.
Very simply, I would remind the committee that the committee recommendations, as well as the CEO recommendations, were to replace statutory declarations with a form of ID, so if we were to vote in favour of Mr. Dewar's amendment we'd actually be voting against the committee recommendation that we all worked so very hard on.
So I have to respectfully oppose his amendment.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
