Okay.
We currently have 38 or 39 authorized documents listed by Elections Canada. While this may appear to be substantial, it is deceiving. As I examined the list through the lens of our community, the number of real options for our citizens is substantially lower.
Many of the listed authorized identifications are attached to housing, education, property ownership, or access to conventional public services. Drivers' licences; Canadian passports; fishing, trapping, or hunting licences; utility bills; vehicle ownership and insurance; residential lease; mortgage documents; pension plan statements of contribution; insurance policies; property tax assessment notices; outdoor wildlife cards or licences; firearms licences; and employee cards are not compatible with poverty and for those who have little economic or social mobility.
The use of cheque-cashing services rather than banks is commonplace in low-income communities as the requirements to show valid ID are replaced with other systems of verification. The use of cheque-cashing stores means that the person will not have a debit card, bank card, or a bank statement.
Other listed authorized identification are neither relevant nor attainable, in our experience. ID related to education—student ID cards, correspondence issued by a school, college, or university; or Canadian Blood Services cards, as I have never known a blood drive to happen in our community; or liquor identification cards, which are non-existent in our province.
Some listed pieces of identification have been modernized and no longer carry a person's name on the card, such as our public library cards that contain only a bar code now and a signature.
Expecting citizens in our community to obtain and retain these forms of ID is unreasonable.
As I stated earlier, RainCity Housing and Support Society works with the reality of a person's current situation. Our work is not abstract; it is practical. People arrive at our services with few or no possessions. Large amounts of our front-line staff efforts go toward helping people secure necessary resources, including ID.
We have collectively put thousands of hours into applying and securing identification for people. The process is most often neither quick nor simple. To get an ID, you often need an ID. The starting place is a birth certificate. Birth certificates depend on the financial resources to pay for the fee, knowledge of your mother's maiden name, and your parents' places of birth. The wait time, depending on the province of birth, can be four to six weeks or longer. These are real barriers for the people we work with.
The unique circumstances of our community led the Province of B.C. elections body to add identification options before our last provincial election. In February 2013, prior to our provincial election, Elections B.C. approved the use of prescription labels on medication bottles as an acceptable form of authorized identification for our community alone. This is recognition by our provincial government that the citizens of our community require special consideration to protect their inherent right to vote. We expect no less from our federal government.
Deficits in communities are offset by their strengths. One of the strengths of our community and other low-income communities is the reliance we have on one another. This is where vouching has its strength—one citizen helping another. We believe that vouching should be retained unless or until some other acceptable method can be found to ensure that all Canadians have the right to vote.
A core mission of RainCity Housing and Support Society is to promote the social inclusion of our people, recognizing that most of the people we work with are and have been excluded from participating equally in society. The right to vote is a fundamental right of citizenship and we ask that voter registration be broadened rather than narrowed.
Thank you for your time.