Thanks, Chair.
I was just saying that with Bill C-6 in particular, it's obvious that the problems arose last summer when Parliament passed a bill regarding elections and the way in which they were going to be conducted. This bill was not interpreted to the liking of Parliament or members' understanding of the bill they had just passed, and they felt it was perhaps an overstepping by Elections Canada. They were quite clear on that.
I was just acknowledging that as chair, you have tried to seek clarification from Elections Canada. I was commenting that Elections Canada had written you back. Monsieur Mayrand had written back acknowledging the receipt of your letter in which you had informed him of the unanimous motion of the committee—so it was unanimous—calling upon Elections Canada to reverse its decision to allow veiled voting, which was the way he put it.
So there was unanimous consent in the committee to address the issue directly with Monsieur Mayrand, through you, Chair, in a formal manner, that is, through a letter, a letter that was a response, and to which Monsieur Mayrand responded. Once the bill made it through Parliament and was passed into law, we could say it had the support of the House; that's a fair comment to make. And when it was discussed by this committee at that time—and it had the unanimous consent of the committee—I think it's fair to say this was a concern to all parties in the House and to all parliamentarians, just from the point of view of unanimity.
But when he wrote back, Monsieur Mayrand said, “As I indicated in my press conference yesterday”—and he attached the transcript—“The Canada Elections Act provides several ways of voting that do not require the visual comparison of an elector with a photograph, and consequently the choice to unveil is that of the elector. This result flows not from a decision on my part, but from the act, as recently adopted by Parliament“.
Of course, there's great debate on that point. There certainly was great debate at that time on that point. I think the debate now has shown itself in the form of Bill C-6, which addresses this.
Now, what he did go on to say towards the end of his letter was that, “I would be pleased to appear [before] the Committee at your convenience to further discuss the requirements of the Act in this regard and the reasons why I believe an adaptation would not be justified at this time”.
So you had interpreted the letter to be a no to this unanimous motion passed by the committee. Attempts were then made to have Monsieur Mayrand appear before the committee.
Again, underlining the criticality of the issue, there are many influential MPs—I would point out Monsieur Guimond in particular—who basically expressed their opinions on this matter.
For example, my friend from the Bloc, Mr. Guimond, said:
I repeat that the Bloc supports the principle of the bill because it believes that all voters, men and women, must be equal before the law.
It's Mr. Guimond who said that, and I congratulate him on those words. He truly speaks on behalf of his party, the Bloc Québécois. He said this was really a critical problem that concerned not only the members and parties, but also voters across Canada. That's a quotation from Hansard.
But there are other MPs who spoke up at the same time—again, as I said, well-known MPs who have important things to add.
For example, Peter Van Loan, another minister, said that during the recent byelections held in Quebec, the government clearly expressed its disagreement with Elections Canada's decision to let people vote with their faces veiled. He said that in October 2007. His remarks were clear.
He also said he thought it was necessary to ensure that the population continues to have confidence in the electoral process. That's an important remark because we're talking about the public's trust in the electoral process. Members are afraid there is a decline in public trust in the electoral process.
That's why we're trying to improve the situation. We've heard from witnesses and we've engaged in debates to identify the reasons why voter turnout at elections is lower. The numbers—