Mr. Speaker, we know from the court case and from some other testimony that the government alone believes that 1.4 million or 1.5 million Canadians would potentially be enfranchised by getting rid of the five-year rule.
In terms of those of the right age who would have the right to vote and would be added to this—beyond the military and diplomats, et cetera, who are excluded from the provisions of all this—let us say that the court in the Frank case said that it was at least a million, that does not mean that people would want to vote or would try to register. However, the fact of the matter is that it is a right to vote and if someone has that degree of connection to Canada that they want to vote, then a certain percentage of that one million people would be what we are dealing with.
The idea of shoving all of this into the campaign period and overburdening Elections Canada makes no sense. Contrast that to France, which has gone out of its way in recent years to make it easier and easier for citizens abroad to vote. They can do it postally. They can vote by Internet now, and they can also go to one of over 700 locations around the world to physically vote. France does it three different ways to make it as easy as possible.
While France is trying to make it as easy as possible, the government here is going in the opposite direction, in the name of some kind of weird set of principles that have no application to any known mischief or problem.