Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-63, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Referendum Act. On a personal note I would like to convey my own best wishes to the solicitor general. We are all glad to see him back in the saddle.
The bill provides for the establishment and updating of a computerized register of electors. It also reduces the electoral period to a minimum of 36 days from 47 days. I will discuss the two main sections of the bill beginning with the permanent registry of electors.
To establish this list it would still be necessary to do one final enumeration after which a permanent list would be created. The list would be updated by consultation with other governmental bodies and by using other records including provincial drivers' licences and records from Revenue Canada.
The second main part of this bill would reduce the electoral period from 47 days to 36 days. In general, reducing the electoral period will mean cost savings. The Reform Party is open to measures to ease the burden on Canadian taxpayers.
In general, the Reform Party is certainly not opposed to the philosophical direction of either change proposed in Bill C-63. In terms of the shorter period, personally I have favoured such a move for a long time. The first time I participated in a federal election the campaign was 56 days. It has been shortened over the years, yet it has still seemed lengthy to me as a participant.
This is something we want to examine in terms of the specifics. I gather that officials of my party including the House leader have indicated that we favour this change, but we would want to look more carefully at the mechanics to make sure 36 days is the correct period of time.
Concerning the permanent register, this is an area where we for some time favoured improvements that would see cost savings, although I will raise a number of possible concerns that the committee should look at.
The Reform Party has also called for other changes to the electoral system including measures that are not found in this bill. My colleagues will address some of these measures.
Reform also supports measures that represent real cost savings to Canadian taxpayers. Although we support measures to reduce the cost of elections for Canadian taxpayers and to streamline the process, we have concerns, some of which I will briefly outline. In outlining these concerns we are happy that the solicitor general and government House leader has said that he is open to amendments. This bill may require some technical amendments in a number of areas.
The first and main concern is the privacy issue. The existence of a permanent voter's list leads to these concerns since the information is to be shared by different levels of government and different governmental bodies. There is a risk that privacy can be compromised. The more information is transferred and shared, the greater the risk of security of the information.
The government assures us that it will ensure the privacy rights of Canadians are respected. However, we all know that no system is foolproof, especially a brand new one.
The existence of a permanent voter's list raises concerns about exactly who could get the list through more advanced technology. The government assures us that it is impossible for the list to circulate but we know mistakes can happen.
The government also assures us the consent of all voters will be sought in terms of the use of information and its release to different agencies. We sincerely hope this is the case but we are concerned first and foremost with ensuring that this bill does not compromise the privacy rights of Canadians.
Let me mention one specific issue in this regard. It appears in this legislation that a voter's list will continue to identify the gender of voters. It has always been a mystery to me why this is necessary. Concerns have been raised with us and we will raise them in the committee about why it is necessary, for example, to identify on a voter's list a single female living alone. This raises concerns in the minds of certain individuals and I think it is one that the government should address.
The second concern is proof of citizenship. It has been often raised in the past about the process for verification of the genuineness of citizenship and the reliability of electors' lists as they apply to new voters and new Canadians. This is a problem we have had in the past. Hopefully this new process will address that. However, we will want to study more carefully what the proposals are in Bill C-63.
The third concern is getting on and off the list. To me this is another fascinating area, in particular as it applies once again to new Canadians. One oddity of this legislation is that while old Canadians are automatically on the list unless they request to be taken off, new citizens or new Canadians must specifically request to be put on the list in the first place. Should this not be a right and a responsibility that applies to all Canadian citizens equally? Why should the regulations for voting depend whether or not you are a new citizen or have previously been a citizen?
The third concern is technology. Will we be ready to begin this after the next election? Will all the systems and technology support be up and running? How reliable are the systems being set up? We all welcome the use of technology to save money and streamline the process but we must admit the possibility for mistakes. The last thing we would ever want to see are mistakes in a federal election or one that would involve having to start from scratch with another enumeration.
Let me echo in that particular concern the comments by my hon. friend from the Bloc Quebecois. It is a bit of a mystery to us why we waited until this late stage to introduce some of these changes so that they cannot be possibly be implemented for the next election. We have waited so long and now are faced with a situation where we are going to possibly have to rush the study of this legislation.
There are other technical concerns that I could raise, for instance, people who do not have drivers' licences, in particular young people, students who also do not file tax returns. There may be technical issues we will have to look at there.
Let me mention briefly the issue of cost. As I said, we welcome the fact that we will be able to save in the future roughly $30 million per election with a permanent voter's list. Furthermore we are prepared to share this technology with provincial and municipal governments and school boards. In theory they all could benefit from this list.
That raises additional questions about the sharing of information. I point out that only three provinces, Alberta, Ontario and New Brunswick, have said categorically that they are interested in this. From a federal cost standpoint we should also consider whether we should not share some cost benefit here at the federal level by sharing this list with provincial governments. If all of the costs have been incurred at the federal level it seems to us that there should be some provision for the federal government to gain something from the savings that will be achieved at the provincial level if there is co-operation.
These are the various concerns that I would like to raise. I am sure there will be others. They are mainly technical in detail and nature. I suspect they are all resolvable and all can be addressed. We look forward to studying this bill in committee.