Thank you.
Just to follow up on what Professor Quail was saying, I concur that some of the pieces of ID that are on that list probably shouldn't be on the list. The library card is an excellent example.
I have always been mystified as to why the Chief Electoral Officer decided to just say “a lease” as opposed to saying “a non-commercial lease”. I actually thought of bringing in all the leases that have my name on them to make this point, or “a current lease” would be helpful, too. Because I keep all my expired leases and apparently they all qualify me in different ridings.
There are problems with this system right now and its lack of security. But it seems to me that the fundamental problem, if I may say so, is that we moved from the process of enumeration, which gave us a current list. It had all kinds of problems. They'd take the list, they'd confirm the list, they'd put it up on a telephone pole, and you would then check it. Everybody remembers that. Mr. Christopherson is nodding that he remembers that, too.
So it had its issues but it was current. What we've tried to move to is a permanent list, and it has massive errors in it.
By the Chief Electoral Officer's own reports, it has an error rate as to people's place of residence of around 16% to 17%. The voter information card is produced from the preliminary list, not from the final list, so it retains that error rate. He says there are some ridings in the country where the rate is over 20%. So there is a fundamental problem that I think exists that needs to be addressed.
It seems to me that much of what is going on in this bill is an attempt to deal with this, including the fact that the voter information card will not be permissible as a means of proving identity, something that does not exist under the current law but which the Chief Electoral Officer announced he would be doing in the future.
I say all of this just to draw attention to something I thought was a problem that is not actually anything that was contained in the testimony of the two witnesses. But maybe I should just turn to something that was discussed by Mr. Simms and Ms. Lenard, and perhaps Mr. Quail also, who have all mentioned this model where one swears an oath. I gather that, according to Mr. Simms, the ballot is then placed in a blank envelope and is counted after the fact when the identity is approved.
If something like that were done, would that actually resolve the issues that are of concern to you with regard to the abolition of vouching?