Mr. Speaker, the two issues the hon. member raised are very important. One is enumeration, and we have to do a much better job of that on our first nations reserves. I have three reserves in my riding, the Squamish First Nation, the Sliammon First Nation and the Sechelt First Nation.
Between 2004 and 2006, the voter turnout in those areas has increased. My wife and I have spent a lot of time knocking on doors there, talking to people in their homes. They are very anxious and energized to get involved in the electoral process.
The changes the bill puts forward, however, would require that the administration of the bill would accept first nations status cards as adequate identification. With the exception of what the hon. member said, these status cards do have picture identification, so they would be acceptable from the standpoint of picture identification on their card. He should check with his area.
The experiences of first nations voters in Canada differ from coast to coast to coast. The bill is trying to deal with some of the general problems that we have in a lot of our urban areas as well as some of the rural areas. The bill would help considerably in voter remuneration and cut down on voter fraud.
As I mentioned briefly, when I was discussing it, one of the major concerns on the voter fraud was in the riding of Trinity—Spadina and the fact over 10,000 citizens were signed up on the day of the election, which is incredibly hard to believe that 10,000 people would come out and would be serially vouched on that day. I understand as well that the Chief Electoral Officer has instigated an audit and is reviewing that right now, and we will see if he gets to the bottom of it.
However, the difficulty is that unless there is some teeth in the legislation, there will be difficulty in auditing it.