Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for the great eastern Ontario riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, it is my pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to the citizen voting act.
When it comes to elections, I am pleased to confirm that I have successfully earned the confidence of the people for the last five general elections. It is with gratitude and humility that I thank the electors of my riding for the honour and the privilege of serving them in this place. As members know, the people are always right. I look forward to being given the privilege of continuing to represent the people of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke after the next general election.
Our government has a long list of important accomplishments, including the bill before us today. I congratulate the Minister of State for Democratic Reform for the excellent job he is doing on behalf of all Canadians. I look forward to working with him for many years to come.
This important bill would ensure that everyone who votes in federal elections is a Canadian citizen, and would require Canadians living abroad to follow the same ID rules as those voting from home. It would also fill a void created in the aftermath of the Ontario Superior Court decision in Frank v. Attorney General of Canada, which struck down the long-standing rules on voting while living abroad.
The citizen voting act would build upon our government's ongoing commitment to strengthen the fairness and integrity of our electoral laws. The commitment started from the time we were first elected to government when we brought into law a series of reforms to clean up the stench of corruption, which Canadians refer to as the “sponsorship scandal”.
Unfortunately, Canadians may never find out what happened to the millions of dollars that were stuffed into envelopes, to be secretly passed to Liberal candidates to subvert the democratic process.
Since 2006, we have brought forward common-sense changes that protect Canadian democracy. One does not have to look too far back to recall the Fair Elections Act, which introduced important reforms that require proof of identity and residence to cast a ballot in federal elections.
Our government is committed to treating both resident and non-resident voters fairly and equally. That is why the citizen voting act would make important reforms to the voting-by-mail procedures and would make the process fairer and more consistent. The bill would also address unfair inconsistencies in the special ballot voting system.
I would first like to take a few moments to explain the relationship between the citizen voting act and the ongoing litigation regarding non-resident voting in Ontario.
In May 2014, the Ontario Superior Court, in Frank v. Attorney General of Canada, struck down the legal requirement that, in order to vote in federal elections, citizens residing outside Canada must have done so for less than five consecutive years and have the intention to return to Canada.
For the benefit of those constituents of mine who are currently serving their country abroad as members of the Canadian Armed Forces, I am pleased to confirm that the ruling did not apply to their unique situation and will continue not to apply their service out of country. In the last federal election, my riding received the highest number of non-resident votes in the country, in no small part due to the significant number of women and men from Base Petawawa that is located in my riding. I thank them for their support. I will always watch their backs to ensure that they have the necessary equipment to do whatever their country calls upon them to do.
As a result of the Ontario court ruling, Canadians residing abroad are now able to vote in federal elections, regardless how long they have resided outside Canada, so long as they have lived in Canada at some point.
For over two decades, Canadian law limited, to five years, the length of time someone can be abroad and still vote.
For over two decades, Canadian law limited to five years the length of time someone can be abroad and still vote. We continue to believe that this is fair and reasonable and that non-residents should have a direct and meaningful connection to Canada and to their ridings to vote in federal elections. That is why our government has appealed the Ontario court ruling. Here it is important to make clear that the citizen voting act does not make any substantive changes to the provisions at issue in the Frank litigation. Our government will leave the resolution of the constitutionality of those sections to the courts.
I will now turn to the substance of the citizen voting act. The bill proposes important reforms to the vote-by-mail process that would strengthen its integrity and fairness. Specifically, it would ensure that only Canadian citizens vote in federal elections by requiring all voters applying for a mail-in ballot from outside Canada to provide proof of their Canadian citizenship.
Further, it would authorize the Chief Electoral Officer to obtain information from Citizenship and Immigration Canada that would allow Elections Canada to remove the names of non-citizens from the voters list, or to ensure that non-citizens are not added in the first place. It would put an end to the possibility of riding shopping by stipulating that non-residents can only receive a ballot for the last address at which they resided in Canada, and that they must present proof of that prior residence.
We must apply the same voter identification rules to all Canadians by requiring that everyone voting by mail include in their application proof of identity and residence consistent with the Fair Elections Act. It would create one set of rules for voting from outside the country.
Finally, it would require the Chief Electoral Officer to carry out an audit of special ballot voting after every election.
I will begin by focusing on what I think are the most important measures of the citizen voting act, the proposals that would ensure that only Canadian citizens vote in federal elections.
The National Register of Electors, or the NRE, is Canada's permanent database of qualified electors. It is intended to include only those who are eligible to vote in federal elections, those being Canadian citizens aged 18 and over.
I think we can all agree that the accuracy of the NRE is what is vital to the integrity and the fairness of Canadian elections. That is important to our Conservative government. However, its accuracy is only as good as the data that supports it. Elections Canada estimates that there are approximately 40,000 non-citizens currently on the National Register of Electors. That means that 40,000 non-citizens could receive voter information cards telling them to vote, even though they are not qualified to do so.
To deal with this unsettling issue, the citizens voting act authorizes my colleague, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with information of persons who are not Canadian citizens, including their name, gender, date of birth, and addresses. This would allow Elections Canada to cross-reference the names on the NRE and delete names that are not Canadian citizens.
Let me be clear. This would not be a one-time clean-up of the voters list. The new authority would allow Elections Canada to periodically request information from the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to make sure that the list remains up to date. The purpose is clear, to not to allow 40,000 non-citizens to end up back on the National Register of Electors in the years to come.
The bill also makes an important change to require anyone applying to vote by mail from outside Canada to prove Canadian citizenship. Since proof of citizenship is required when travelling abroad, Canadians temporarily outside the country during an election would not be adversely affected by this change. I think we can all agree that this is reasonable practice and should be a part of Canada's election laws.
Collectively, these are important changes that would help prevent non-citizens from voting and should be supported.