Mr. Speaker, I will start with the points on which I am in agreement with my friend from the Bloc. I agree with the fact that having this come from the Senate is passing strange. I would challenge him on one point, though, in that some senators have gone through elections, some as candidates and many as backroom employees. They raised money and did good services for their party and were rewarded with a seat in the other place.
I would agree with him that it is passing strange to have amendments coming from the Senate on something that affects elections and potential concerns around voter fraud, but my concern, however, relates to the comment the member made, and I want to get this right, that because the Bloc has shown how it is done and has a good machine, and because its members have used some of the facets that are in Bill C-31, this is reason enough for us to adopt it here.
My concern is that when we look at things like sharing birthdate information, I could not disagree with him more.
When I talk to my constituents about this, and I wrote about it in one of my householders, people are shocked to learn that we actually would share birthdate information not only with Elections Canada, which means throughout the ridings and throughout the country--and that paper could fall off the table and into in the wrong hands--but with political parties. The fact that political parties would have this information shocks people. This came about through the amendment from the Liberals and the Bloc at committee.
People are extremely shocked. They do not want their birthdate information shared with Elections Canada in a public way, and they sure do not want it shared with a political party. They were shocked to learn that the Bloc and the Liberals had joined together on this and then the icing on the cake was having the Conservative Party allow this amendment to go through. People just do not understand.
That is what my question is about. I have a letter from the Privacy Commissioner, who did not have the luxury of presenting her case before committee. I had to write to her after it was fiated through committee. She argues against doing what the member suggests would be helping the system. How can he argue that sharing birthdate information has anything to do with increasing voter participation?
In fact, what increases voter participation is trust in the system. There seems to be a disconnect. People see this as what I call a big brother bill. What we are doing here is making citizens' privacy vulnerable in legislation. Some of the people who have called have said they would remove their names from the voters' lists because this is an invasion of privacy. Then the effect will be that we will have fewer people voting.
I would like the member's comments on this birthdate information and how he connects it with a higher rate of voter participation.