Mr. Speaker, I think that the member made some good points. This approach is conceivable as long as the rules governing voters lists are respected.
Certainly, we would like to see this information out there. Our concern, when we first approached it in government, when the inclusion of birthdates on the list distributed to the parties was first proposed by the opposition at committee, was that we cannot necessarily expect that people will respect these lists. These lists do get into other hands and there is a possibility that they would get into hands where we would not want them, and that would produce an increased risk of identify theft.
On the other hand, obviously it would make it easier for political parties because, beyond Elections Canada, they are a very important part of the process of scrutinizing the vote. That is why they are called scrutineers, to ensure that electoral fraud does not take place. That is why we provide for each party to have oversight at each polling station.
From that perspective, it would add something to the system. What we have to do is balance these two very legitimate and competing objectives.
In our case, we thought that balancing those two was a very close call. At the end of the day, the approach that we have adopted is one of seeking consensus and seeking the compromise here in the House in order to have this bill become law.
Our main objective is to see Bill C-31 become law in Canada.