Yes. In British Columbia, both our B.C. Supreme Court and our Court of Appeal have confirmed that the existing rules before this bill came along violate section 3 of the charter, but the court was convinced that it would survive the section 1 test, which looks at whether there are measures that make it minimally impairing and so on.
As I said in my opening comments, a key part, really the cornerstone of the government's argument to save the old rules was the existence of vouching; that there was a safety net available to people who wouldn't have the ID. That was a significant part of their argument. It's still our position that the pre-existing rules are not justified under section 1, but if you remove that piece, it seems to me that what's left is in serious doubt. It's not clear to me that the courts would see this as passing constitutional muster. I think it's a very serious problem.
On the other hand, as I said in my comments earlier, what's missing is a reliable safety net and a rule that says that if you can't have anybody vouch for you and you don't have ID, you can swear a declaration confirming your identity and your residence—it's a criminal offence to swear a wrong one—and confirming that you're a citizen and that you're in the right place to be voting. Then you get to cast a ballot. That would do the trick.
That was our argument. It was rejected earlier by the government, but I have heard in the CBC reports that the the minister is now perhaps blinking on that issue and that the bill may undergo some amendment to reinsert this mechanism.
To my mind, with that amendment, the legislation would not violate section 3 with respect to the voter identification requirements.