Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity given to the Council of Canadians, and me as executive director, to present today to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding Bill C-76.
I speak to the committee today as we prepare to go to court to defend the constitutional right of every Canadian of age to vote in next year's federal election.
The issues of greatest concern to us in the current legislation are those provisions that will rescind amendments to the Canada Elections Act made by the previous government in passing the so-called Fair Elections Act, which made it more difficult for the Chief Electoral Officer to communicate with Canadians about the electoral process and their right to vote; stripped the Chief Electoral Officer of his ability to authorize the voter information card as a means for proving an elector's residence or identity; diminished the independence and accountability of the Commissioner of Canada Elections; and effectively eliminated vouching as a means for people without the necessary identification to obtain a ballot.
In response to the Fair Elections Act, the Council of Canadians partnered with the Canadian Federation of Students to file a charter challenge, not only to repeal those problematic elements of the act but also to defend the most fundamental right in a democratic society: the right to vote. We launched the charter challenge because the Fair Elections Act made it harder for students, people who are de-housed, seniors, indigenous people, and others who have difficulty proving their identity and residence to vote. That application is to be heard by the Ontario superior court in October 2018, a date chosen so that the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer will have the six months he requires to implement the necessary changes, should we succeed, before the 2019 federal election. We certainly hope that the provisions of Bill C-76 will address the issues now before the court and will come into force in time to obviate the need for that hearing.
Until the bill receives royal assent, our case will proceed. We have amassed a substantial body of expert opinion, including from Harry Neufeld, the former chief electoral officer of British Columbia, stating that the Fair Elections Act effectively limits ballot access by increasing the administrative burden for any voter who does not possess acceptable documentation that proves their current address of residence. It has made the vouching process more intimidating to participants. It's difficult for all to understand and cumbersome for election officers to administer.
This also eliminates the discretion of the Chief Electoral Officer to allow any use of the voter identification card as a legitimate form of address identification. Elections Canada has described the problem in this way:
With regard to accessibility, a continued challenge in the identification regime is the difficulty some electors face in providing documentary proof of their residence. Among the larger challenges is that no piece of identification issued by the [federal government] contains all three elements required in a single piece by the Act: the elector's photograph, name and address.
The difficulty electors may encounter in proving their current address falls disproportionately on certain groups. As described by Elections Canada, these groups are indigenous people; electors living on first nations reserves; electors living in long-term care facilities, including seniors; youth, including students; the de-housed, also known as homeless electors; and electors who have recently moved or who have difficulty proving their physical address.
The Harper government's declared objectives in enacting the Fair Elections Act were to protect against fraud and to uphold the integrity of our electoral system, but study after study has shown that claims about in-person voter fraud have no foundation and serve as a pretext for measures intended to prevent unfriendly voters from being able to cast a ballot. In fact, public concern about voter fraud, as we saw following the 2011 election robocall scandal, was about organized efforts to deter people from voting, not about individuals seeking to vote fraudulently.
The groups I have highlighted who are disproportionately challenged to prove their identity and residence are electors who care deeply about a host of public policy issues, particularly those that affect their daily lives and that often become important electoral issues. They would have strong views about what government should be doing to deal with the problems they confront, and are keen to participate in the electoral process.
Under the Constitution, all Canadians are guaranteed the right to vote, yet for many, including tens of thousands of electors who are on the voter list, the voter identification requirements of the act are a significant impediment to exercising their democratic franchise.
In summary, the Council of Canadians is strongly supportive of those provisions of Bill C-76 that will reverse the anti-democratic reforms of the previous government, including an expansion of the Chief Electoral Officer's mandate to include public education campaigns; a reversal of changes that disallowed the use of a voter information card as a piece of eligible identification at polling stations; a reversal of changes that disallowed one voter vouching for another; and more independence to the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
Thank you.