I appreciate that, Mr. Chair.
I have two amendments I'd like to propose.
As I started out by saying I would, I would hope to persuade the government, but I'm not sure we have. I think it's important before I table the amendments to realize that hanging over people's heads when vouching, of course, is the potential of being prosecuted. That's what the oral advice that's referred to in the provision is intended to signal, that the person knows when they vouch for somebody there is the potential to be prosecuted.
That's as it should be, because the system does require that kind of enforcement piece. I understand why the government has that. But if somebody is then told, “Here's one of the criteria. You have to know the elector personally; otherwise, do you know the oral advice I just gave you? You could be prosecuted,” my worry is not just the outside alien examples of my friend Scott, it's whether the average person will take a step back and say, “Okay, well, I can attest to the fact that the elector resides here, but what do you mean by, that I know the person personally?” They're going to ask the poll clerk or the deputy returning officer or the central poll supervisor, and they're not going to be able to tell them.
Mr. Lukiwski, in his answer to Madam Latendresse, at one point said “I know who you are,” and then said “I know you.” Those are two very different things.
I'm not sure how anybody in the election day worker system will know how to answer that question. Do you know what the result will likely be? People will say, “I'm not signing this. Do you mean you could prosecute me because somebody determines that I don't know them well enough? I've known them for the last two weeks. I just moved in next door. Is that enough?”
I just think that the disincentive potential, when people know that this is a criterion and they can be prosecuted for it is where we have to see the issue.
Now, I think Tom may have laid his hands on a possible solution because he answered the question by saying it's an attestation. If we could somehow find a way for this to be rewritten or amended to say you still have to swear this, so it relies on your own sense of good faith and honour, whether you know this person personally, what does that mean? You swear to that, but this is not part of what you can be prosecuted for. You could be prosecuted if, by chance, somebody was able to prove that you did not know that the elector resided in the polling division, it turns out the person did not and you knew that. That's a much easier thing to prove than whether you knew them personally.
What I would like to do is move an amendment that would say, “That Bill C-23 be amended in clause 48 by adding after item 143(3)(b)(v)”—so that means by adding there subsection 143(3.1)—“(3.1) No one may be prosecuted for any offence under this act on the sole basis of not having complied with item 143(3)(b)(ii).” That is the provision that says they know the elector personally.
It stays as a standard. It taps into the sense that Scott's been talking about, the sense of honour that we prefer to bring. What we prefer to think of is what voters bring to our system. Just as when a person swears in court to tell the truth, the average person would take it seriously enough, but they would also have the protection of knowing that for that one thing, they can't be prosecuted.
If what I've just suggested isn't accepted or a wording that's technically better, then I think you're going to have this huge dissuasive effect for anybody willing to step up and vouch. It will cast a fairly wide penumbra, not just in an aliens landing with tinfoil hats scenario. People are going to say, “I don't know that this satisfies knowing a person personally and I'm not willing to put myself on the line by vouching. Nobody in this polling station can tell me what it means.” And no wonder; it's quite subjective and abstract.
That's the amendment I would like to move. I don't know if I've properly worded it in a way that anybody else can improve on.