Thank you all very much for taking the time to be here today.
I have to tell you, listening to Mr. Kerwin, I can't help but sort of reflect on this bizarro world we're in right now dealing with this bill: there's actually a formal bill in front of the House that is likely, within weeks, to become law; the Chief Electoral Officer was not consulted and is opposed; the previous Chief Electoral Officer has said they're opposed and there should be major changes or withdraw it; the Commissioner of Canada Elections was not consulted and also says that the bill should be either dramatically changed or withdrawn, and the previous Commissioner of Canada Elections, and we can go on.
It's also a shame, and we've seen this already with other presentations, aboriginal women who were here earlier come to my mind.... It's a shame that we aren't doing exactly what you said, Mr. Kerwin, looking at a series of proposals and talking about them, putting them to people and asking if it helps. Does this help people to vote, does it make it easier, does it strengthen our democracy?
Instead you're here today, as were the aboriginal women who were here recently, fighting just to get a fair shake in the election and trying to defend yourselves against the new law that's going to hurt you.
The whole scenario that we're in is just completely mind-boggling. I mean you almost have to be in Parliament to believe that this could be the real world.
Having said all of that, I want to focus a bit on the voter information card, because more and more, we're getting people coming in and saying that it either should be a voter identification card, or we should actually be providing a voter identification card free of charge by the government to the people to help them to vote.
Here's my point about the voter information card. The information that's on it comes from all the various databases that Elections Canada could reach into. The current Chief Electoral Officer has said that the most accurate document, certainly more than driver's licence, is the voter information card.
It makes common sense. You don't have to be an expert in the field. If you have one database to draw on, and that's the driver's licence database, you're only going to have accurate information as good as that one database. But when you're reaching into virtually every other database that Elections Canada can tap into, the odds are that this document is going to be the most accurate and the most up to date. That's what's so frustrating. Something that would be a help to Canadians, a voter identification card, is being rejected by this government, and we know it's deliberate.
Do you have further thoughts on the voter information card in terms of the current proposal that's in front of us? What do you think about the idea that Elections Canada and the government could undertake providing people with an actual ID card, exactly what many Canadians on election day believe that they have in their hand? That's for whoever wants to jump in.