Madam Speaker, I did not plan on speaking to the bill today but there is one thing I would like to point out which I have not heard today in the comments of other members.
I too have reservations with the whole idea of putting photographs on the ballot. I would disagree with the hon. member from the Bloc who just pointed out that members of his party would probably not have much problem if all the candidates had their photographs on the ballot. The point I want to raise is a good argument for having neither. Neither should all the photos be on the ballot. Nor should just two in the case of names that are very similar.
For people who do not know what their candidates look like, if they do not follow politics very much or did not really pay any attention to the leaflets and literature that might have come to their doors, there is a very real possibility they are the type of people who do not really know a lot about politics and would make their choices based on what the candidate looked like.
I think everybody here would agree that would be fundamentally wrong. There are all kinds of biases that exist: racial bias or racial prejudice or gender bias, people who do not want women in politics. My name is one that could be used for a male or female. Many people with the name Pat are from both genders.
There may be two people with the name Pat, one a man and one a woman, and the choice would be made simply because someone might not want women in politics and would vote for the male, never mind what the virtues are.