Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for not only his question but for his very thoughtful contribution to the debate throughout the process.
What we have proposed with the amended fair elections act is the following. We have eliminated identity vouching. That is the process whereby people show up with no ID whatsoever and cannot demonstrate who they are, so someone else vouches for their identity. That would no longer be permitted under the Canada Elections Act.
Every single person would be required to provide ID. If that ID did not have an address on it, for example, if a person lived in an area where there was only a P.O. box on the driver's licence, someone else could co-sign an oath with the person as to the person's place of residence. A person would still have to prove his or her identity, but residence could be proven through a co-signed oath.
There would be a $50,000 fine for lying on that oath, and potential jail time could accompany that fine. For the first time, Elections Canada would be required by law to compile a list of all the oath-takers in order to check for duplicates to find out if people voted or signed oaths more than once, which would be an offence under the act.
Finally, there would also be a legal requirement for an auditor to examine Elections Canada's management of this oath-taking process to make sure that all of these rules were followed. In other words, people would have to show their ID, and if an oath had to be signed to prove residence, we would follow up to make sure that the person did not vote more than once. That is a massive improvement over the status quo.