Mr. Speaker, one aspect of vouching is the ability of our returning officers and clerks who are trained by Elections Canada. We may have to do more training, which I believe is being addressed. Where this would hurt is in the hundreds of thousands of rural polls. There are small rural polls with less than 200 voters. The clerks who come from these areas know their neighbours. They know the people down the street. Quite often in a rural poll two people may be out walking, see that the poll is open, want to go in and vote, but have forgotten their ID. They go into the polling station and there is a clerk who is their neighbour. They live next door to this person. Why are the government and the Conservatives trying to take away the power of a returning officer or clerk at the table to say, “I know who you are. Your name is on the voters' list. You are my neighbour”, if they happened to be out and it was convenient for them to come and vote? We are trying to make voting more accessible and more convenient. Not allowing the clerks and the people at the table to use their judgment to say that, because they are neighbours or live in the community, they know them, would make voter turnout plummet.
In the House of Commons on February 24th, 2014. See this statement in context.