Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Sept. 13th, 2007

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

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.

[Salim Mansur]

I cannot imagine a scenario where a person who wanted to participate in public life through the act of voting wouldn't be able to provide a photo.

Is the point you are raising that the photo should come from a source that has a stamp of the government on it, whatever level of government—a driver's licence, a passport, a Canadian citizenship card, etc.?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I'm simply asking whether it is possible, given the state of photo identification in this country, that certain people legitimately wouldn't have it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

We are at the end of the first round for that group.

Mr. Reid, you are next, for seven minutes, please.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks to all of our witnesses who are here today.

I can't help noticing that one of the witnesses mentioned she lives on a farm just outside of Kingston, which may make her a constituent, so I have to be especially nice to her as a result.

Someone mentioned that about 300 women in Canada make use of the veil. Did I hear that right? What is the total number of Muslims in Canada, half of whom I assume are women? Could I get answers to those questions as a starting point?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I think the answer on the 300 came from Raheel. We'll go there first and then we'll quickly go to the next witness, please.

Is the answer 300 correct?

[Raheel Raza]

Yes, the answer is 300. It was in a press release in the newspaper that I got this information. The number of Muslims, I believe, at this point, is 850,000—no, 750,000, I'm told.

[Alia Hogben]

I'm sorry, I'm going to disagree with my friend Raheel. I don't think there are only 300 women in Canada who are wearing the full face veil. I think there are a lot more than that.

You live in Toronto.

I think it's growing. I don't think we can say, as somebody said, that it's a minority within a minority. I think the wearing of the face veil is growing among Muslims. That's one thing.

The number of Muslims in Canada is supposed to be about 650,000 just now. We will grow to about a million in another ten years.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

Obviously, what I was doing was trying to establish what percentage. Based on this, it would be a somewhat rough guess. It's certainly not, I gather, the majority of Muslim women at this point who would be using the veil.

The concern I have, and I think this is reflected by a number of the people on this committee, is not a fear that Muslim women are going to be using the veil as a way of voting fraudulently. It's that given the very lax parameters the Chief Electoral Officer has adopted with regard to the kinds of identification papers you have to present in order to vote, the additional ability to vote with your face covered would allow other individuals to take advantage of this to vote, effectively without showing their faces and in addition with fraudulent ID.

By way of making this point, I'm sitting here with the list of acceptable documents the Chief Electoral Officer put out for the coming by-elections in Quebec. I just look at the documents issued to members of my own family, which come to my address even though they don't live at my address. I only took ID that comes to female individuals associated with me.

You can use a credit card statement. Well, my mother and I share a credit card, and it comes to my address. She doesn't live with me.

You can use a utility bill, including residential phone, TV, public utilities, hydro, gas, or water. My landlady receives one bill at the house I have in Ottawa. I have a landlady for my house in the riding. She gets the local property tax assessment and another utility bill.

So we're up to about three or four bills now. In addition, you can use things such as transcripts from schools, colleges, or universities, and report cards. No date requirement has been attached to these things.

The Chief Electoral Officer has added that attestations from a number of different authorities—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Reid, excuse me. I wonder if we could just bring it back to the veil thing. Thank you.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Right; I'm about to do that, Mr. Chair.

Attestations—not given on prescribed forms, but simply an attestation from somebody that you are so-and-so and live at this address—count as a form of ID.

Given this very broad range of things, the concern that was expressed by, among others, Sheila Copps in a recent article was that this is opening the door to other individuals, who are not necessarily members of the Muslim faith but are simply people who assert, “I have a right to vote with my face covered”, to take advantage of the generally very broad rules on ID to vote fraudulently.

I wonder whether any members of the panel could comment on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm going to ask a gentleman at the table to introduce himself and comment, because he hasn't commented yet. Then we'll go to you, ma'am.

[Naresh Raghubeer, Executive Director, Canadian Coalition for Democracies]

My name is Naresh Raghubeer. I'm executive director with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies.

Mr. Reid, in response to your question first about the number of women in Canada who wear the veil, I think as parliamentarians we cannot be setting precedents, when we make our laws, based on the current numbers. We have to look at demographics and the changing society we live in and establish laws that are to the benefit of all Canadians, especially considering the changing demographic trends.

On the second point you raised, about the requirement and number of IDs to vote, I think Quebec actually has the best system in Canada. In Quebec, you have to be registered to vote at least five or six days prior—I'm sure I can be corrected—and if you're not on the registration list as a registered voter, you are not eligible to vote on election day, no matter what ID you bring in.

You start by insisting that the registration list be accurate and consistent with all the voters, and then you ensure that the valid ID with photographs is available.

I think we certainly have too many options here, especially for last-minute voting, which may flout the law or the will of Parliament.

I'll leave it there. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Alia.

[Alia Hogben]

I'd still like to bring out the point of why it is always being discussed as a Muslim issue, first of all, and that any discussion that I've heard today seems to be focusing on us, and second, that you're building more anti-Muslim feelings out there. This has nothing to do with us.

The committee, Parliament, and the Chief Electoral Officer obviously need to have a lot of discussion among themselves. Do it on the basis of fairness, security, and all those things that affect all of us as Canadians, not on our religiosity. I wish you would hear that, instead of it being only about Muslim women and veils.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

I have another hand up, from Mr. Harris. There are about 20 seconds left, so that will be the end of this round.

[David Harris]

It's important to bear in mind when we look at the trends that according to genuinely moderate imams like Imam Palazzi and Imam Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council in the United States, they both say that about 80% of Canadian and U.S. mosques are dominated by radicals, frequently those of Saudi disposition.

This does represent an issue, and it does suggest that we may be seeing a lot more of the rejectionism that may be implicit in some of the full facial veiling, and I believe we have to prepare ourselves and govern ourselves accordingly.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you.

I will put my question to you in French and you can listen to the interpretation. First of all, I want to thank the community for being so well represented here, despite the very short notice. We have had occasion to work together in the past and we were very grateful for that opportunity.

You mentioned that we should not be examining this issue from a religious angle. Like the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, you were allotted very little time to speak to this subject. I'd like you to elaborate further on this matter. You said you felt this problem should not be examined from a religious perspective.

[Alia Hogben]

I think it is not a religious issue. When Muslims go to the most holy of places, which is on the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, women have to show their faces. Therefore, the covering of the face is really the interpretation of some people, but it is not a majority decision, nor is it a legal or religious requirement in Islam.

[Farzana Hassan]

I will add to that.

Even for women who believe that it is a religious requirement, they would not practice it as rigidly, and if they were asked to comply with a certain regulation, they would. So it's not an issue.

[Raheel Raza]

I would like to start by asking another question and saying that this is a secular country where there's separation between state and religion, so why is Elections Canada using this terminology about Muslim women and the veil? This is my question to them. Obviously, they have misunderstood this whole concept. Why should it even be brought up?

Elections are for all Canadians, men and women of every culture and every nationality. Whatever rules are made should apply in a democratic way to everybody, not only to a small religious group.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I see a number of other people wanting to answer. Are you comfortable with allowing them to go on?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Yes.

[Salim Mansur]

I would say to the members that none of these decisions can be made in a vacuum. We are living in a world where there are reverberations all around, and I hope the members of this committee and members of Parliament as a whole recognize that there's a huge ferment, a great turmoil taking place in the Muslim world, and Canadian Muslims are not excluded from that turmoil.

The folks who practice the custom of veiling are a minority and are also people who preach a very extreme version of Islam, which would then be sanctioned and would be given approval and legitimacy by an act of Parliament that would then have redounding effects in other spheres of activity right across our society.

Do we want a segregated society?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We still have more people. Would you like to go to your next question?