It was not an election; it was a referendum. That's because in Ontario owners of property can vote, but not seven times. You're only allowed to vote once in the municipality.
The question of the charter and the balancing is perhaps the core philosophical question behind what we're wrestling with here. When you have competing rights and responsibilities, it's often what you have to wrestle with as public policymakers or as courts. Here we are dealing with fundamental rights to vote, the integrity of that system, and people's religious beliefs.
I'm not a theologian and I'm not going to pretend to be one. There's certainly been a lot of comment offered by people from the Islamic community suggesting that the wearing of a veil in this particular issue of face covering is not a religious requirement but rather a cultural choice. I'm not going to decide that question. I don't think I'm qualified to decide that question.
What we have attempted to do with this bill and with the flexibility that's available to the Chief Electoral Officer is achieve that balance, even if it is someone's religious view and somebody determines that is a valid religion--but, of course, what's a valid religion? If someone says their religion involves human sacrifice, obviously we say we don't accept that; we say that the right of an individual to life and to not be killed trumps that. As I say, there are times when you have to decide where you come down. I think here you've got a solution that allows people to vote and also gives the Chief Electoral Officer the ability to create the flexibility to respect those cultural or religious norms, if that's what they are, while still requiring a visual demonstration of identification.
I've said this before on the positive beneficial effect. What I think offended most Canadians was the notion of special treatment and lack of equality in different people being given different rights or different treatment. Then the other fear was that the different treatment could be abused by other individuals who, under the guise of pretending they had a religious view or something else, would then be able to commit fraud. That was not the intention.
I think the balance has been struck here. I'm sure you could have different views from different people depending on how they interpret both the theological questions and the balancing of rights.