Yes, thank you very much, Chair, and thank you Mr. Hawn.
Just to follow up a little bit on what Kevin was saying, one of the provisions of the elections act, Bill C-23, is to oblige Elections Canada to advertise and communicate more aggressively with voters as to the hows of voting, as well as the wheres and whens. “How” meaning what kind of ID to present, which would eliminate a lot of the problems with the VICs, but I would also point out that the only true way to eliminate voter fraud—because of the problems everyone has with databases and I fully agree with that—is to produce proper identification, not through vouching, not through voter information cards, but through proper identification.
As an example, someone told me just a day or so ago that if you wanted to renew your Ontario health card now—do you know the process you have to go through? You have to produce three pieces of ID to get your Ontario health card. Every single societal privilege or right that we seem to have, except for voting, requires one to produce proper identification. That's just a normal function of who we are and the times in which we live.
I would just suggest that, getting back to the root of this whole discussion, whether or not vouching should be eliminated, or whether VICs should be allowed.... We have roughly 18 months or slightly less before the next election. If people were educated now as to the kinds of identification that are required, and the options to produce identification that are available, I think a lot of the problems that we see, if there have been problems, would be eliminated. I'd just like to see if you have any comments on that.