Thank you.
My name is Murray Mollard. I'm a lawyer and the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association in Vancouver.
We don't have very much time, and I'm going to keep my remarks very short. I have had the opportunity of appearing before a variety of committees in the time I've worked at the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which is over 12 or 13 years now, and I've never had such short notice to be called as a witness as on this bill.
I am very concerned that this bill appears to be a very quick job, whereby Parliament is attempting to rectify a problem that was created by Bill C-31. We testified over a year ago, and we've been asked to testify again. I think the things we're wanting to say today, along with some of the other witnesses, are really about problems that we identified with Bill C-31 in the first place. There are various groups of voters who wish to vote and would like to vote but aren't going to be able to effectively vote because of the combination of Bill C-31...which really hasn't been rectified by Bill C-18.
I think for you as a parliamentary committee concerned with the issue of voting, the big question or the big concern we have heard with respect to the amendments to the Canada Elections Act is that there's a real concern about fraud. We still have to see any real evidence as to whether this fraud is a real problem or not, and certainly that is going to be an issue for us.