This was introduced late last evening. It would add a provision 149.1 to Canada's Election Act saying:
The Chief Electoral Officer shall ensure that the notice of confirmation of registration that is sent under section 95 or 102 is marked with a prominent message informing the elector that this notice of confirmation of registration may not be used as a piece of identification for the purposes of voting.
As bizarre as it may seem, the official opposition lost all of its amendments that attempted to bring back the ability of the Chief Electoral Officer to authorize voter information cards to be used as a second piece of ID alongside another piece of ID to show an address prominently.
What we're left with now is a situation where almost one million people were authorized to use them in 2011. A good chunk, some estimate over 400,000, actually did use them, and without vigorous efforts on the part of Elections Canada not just to do what the government wants, which is to tell people what they need to vote with, they should be told what they cannot vote with.
There will be chaos in some polls and in some areas for people showing up with their VICs assuming, like in 2011, they could use it. This is an effort to basically help avoid chaos by instructing the Chief Electoral Officer to prominently say, on the voter information card, that this card cannot be used.
I think it might have been Mr. Simms who asked Mr. Richards here last night whether the advertising of information feature on the government's amendment would permit the Chief Electoral Officer to message Canadians what they could not use. We had an answer that was, I think, maybe the best Mr. Richards could come up with on the spot. He wanted to stick to the text and the text simply says that you're allowed to advertise what you can use not what you cannot use.
I just hope that there is no doubt that surely the Chief Electoral Officer can advertise generally, and not just on this card, that this card cannot be used by virtue of the decision to ban the Chief Electoral Officer from authorizing this in the future.
That's my motion to add 149.1.