I suppose one of the reasons we did not pass a law insisting on visual identification is because the pieces of identification accepted by Elections Canada imply a certain kind of discrimination. A person needs to have either a driver's licence, when we don't insist that every citizen have a driver's licence with photo ID; or a passport, when we don't insist that every Canadian, to be a citizen, needs to have a passport with a photo.
Since the law does not mention veiled women and gives three different ways of voting without visual identification, if we insisted—as the Prime Minister seems to be saying—on visual identification through some piece of documentation, which is discriminatory, because not every person has a driver's licence and a passport, would there be people, male or female, in some of the communities you represent who would be excluded from the voting process? Never mind the veil; think about the photo.