Mr. Speaker, as a committee member, one of the concerns that I had about the bill was on the issue of access to voting and potential barriers that the bill would create for people who, because of life circumstances, would not be able to exercise their franchise.
I brought this point forward to the committee by way of the testimony from witnesses. I moved amendments and brought the amendments forward to report stage so that people who, for reasons of circumstance, would not have the photo ID or the access to two pieces of identification, as would be recognized by Elections Canada.
To be very clear about it, the bill does say that people would be allowed to vote if they had someone there to vouch for them. The problem is that the person vouching would need to be on the voter's list in that particular poll.
Having heard testimony from aboriginal people and from people who advocate on behalf of the homeless and students, we know this will be problematic. We know that people in homeless shelters are often not there for very long. We also know that the people who are advocates working on their behalf often do not reside in the same riding, let alone the same poll, and therefore will not be on the voter list.
We have a predicament here. We have a bill, that seemingly and sadly will be passed, that will put barriers in front of Canadians and potentially disenfranchise people.
We could take this one step further. Duff Conacher from Democracy Watch said that we could have a Florida on our hands. He simply stated that if people were to challenge their right to vote and the results were close in any particular riding, and we have a minority Parliament, we could be setting up a situation similar to the one recently in the United States where it was not the people of the United States who decided who the president was, it was the supreme court. Certainly no one wants to go down that route.
I am not suggesting that will happen. I am simply pointing out some of the barriers and asking why, in goodness' name, would we go down that route when there are other solutions for potential voter fraud.
I just want to mention that the Chief Electoral Officer, whom we lauded so well, mentioned at committee that the problem that was being suggested by committee members was not a problem, and I agree. We need to look at whether this is a real problem. An analogy would be ripping off our roof because we might have a draft in the basement window. However, if we have the Chief Electoral Officer saying that and we have problems around access to voting, and we have, as Duff Conacher said, a potential where we will have an outcome that will be challenged and therefore putting our whole system in peril, what are we to do?
I would just like his comments on that notion that this could actually put more barriers in front of Canadians.