Yes absolutely. As I was saying before, if someone has an account with us and we know their account history, similar to someone being on the voter list, I believe that is enough trust for me to allow an account to open and for that person to deposit cheques, to deposit cash, to have money transfers go into the account and then to receive an ATM card and continue to have financial services.
We have to have this rule at Pigeon Park Savings Bank because otherwise we wouldn't have any account holders. Initially almost all of our accounts come from people who are very disenfranchised, homeless individuals who have experienced financial exclusion from other institutions, which have very strict identification requirements of having current ID, similar to what the rules would be if Bill C-23 is able to pass.
We have files on thousands of people. We do what we can to help people find identification, but as was mentioned by the other panellists, it does take a lot of effort to find someone's birth certificate, find someone's SIN card, find the money required to buy a B.C. identification card. So for people with mental health issues, it's very challenging to have the patience to do that. As you can imagine, people with addiction issues have other concerns as well.
I don't want to argue that some folks don't deserve the right to vote. I think that someone who is a mentally ill drug addict who's homeless still deserves the right to vote, even if some people don't think they are deserving of anything. I believe they can and should participate in the democratic process. Without much conversation saying what's at stake in some elections, people are very mobilized around things, and to deny them that franchise I find depressing. It's a great injustice when you see it at a systemic level where, in the Downtown Eastside, it's a high concentration of poor people.
Already I think the rules are very restrictive for people, with a lot of hoops to jump through in order to vote. To deny even the hoop to jump through to vote is a tragedy.