Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to my colleague. I appreciate that there's a lot of information that I want to bring forward, and my goodness, it's not hard to be able to bring it back to long-term care homes. The robocall scandal of course applies to long-term care homes. The robocall scandal phoned many, many humans across Canada, including those in long-term care homes, with information.
Let's see here; I have some points around this robocall scandal that was put forward. Robocalls and human calls were originating from the Conservative Party campaign office in Guelph. We know that these were designed specifically to suppress the vote by misleading electors about the location of their polling stations. In 2011, again bringing it back, I don't know if the long-term care homes were being provided with polling stations at that time. I don't believe they were. Perhaps I can get some clarification on that.
Certainly, when we have people who are residing in long-term care homes receiving phone calls that are providing them with a location of their polling station that isn't in fact the location of their polling station, I don't know about everybody around this table, but I would imagine that there would be consensus that this is a big problem.
We know that there are provisions within Bill C-65 that specifically touch on.... Oh, there are no provisions. Excuse me. Again, this speaks to something that needs to be addressed and that needs to be talked about at more length. Those in long-term care homes deserve to know where they are voting and how they can do so. They deserve to have that clarity in place. Again, it's a given that we would support legislation that ensures that people in long-term care homes have access to polling stations in the most barrier-free way possible and that they are able to do so in an effective manner.
We hear from seniors across the country who have contributed to our country for generations. The work they did is the reason we are able to enjoy so much that we enjoy today. To sit here and to have Conservatives purposely not wanting to see legislation moving forward that would in fact help seniors who are in long-term care homes, that would make sure people understand clearly how to vote, and that would reduce barriers so that we see a strengthened democracy is just....
I can't even bring to words the level of frustration there is in being in this position—representing the good people of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, sitting at this table, and knowing that we have legislation that can move us forward in sound ways, with movement in the right direction to have fewer barriers to showing up at the voting station, but instead having the Conservatives use this as a fundraising effort and seeing Conservatives use this as an opportunity to spread misinformation and division amongst Canadians. It's beyond me.
When I first got elected, call me naive, but I was optimistic that this would be an opportunity for us to be able to have these really important discussions. This is what we were elected to do. Instead—I don't even know if this is parliamentary or not—my soul gets sucked every day I have to come in here and listen to the Conservatives spreading misinformation, and the hate that it is fuelling in our communities, because of the fact that fundraising is more important than the rights of Canadians to pass their ballots at the polling stations barrier-free.