Mr. Speaker, I should say first that I will be sharing my time with the Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification.
I am pleased to address the House with respect to Bill C-50, the Citizen Voting Act. The bill deals with electoral reform intended to strengthen the integrity and fairness of our electoral system.
Canada has one of the world’s most generous electoral systems with respect to the right to vote, and Canadians are proud of their democracy. That is why our government is taking measures to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. I will therefore explain how the citizen voting act, which we have the pleasure of discussing today, protects our electoral system.
Preserving the integrity of our electoral system is important. Elections Canada estimates that there are about 40,000 names of non-citizens currently listed in the National Register of Electors. This means that there are 40,000 non-citizens who could easily obtain a voter information card telling them where and how to vote, and could therefore go to a polling station and vote. As we know, that is in fact illegal.
That is why the citizen voting act will authorize Canada’s Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with the name, gender, date of birth and addresses of non-citizens, so that Elections Canada can compare the data and remove non-citizens from the National Register of Electors.
The citizen voting act will make it a legal requirement for anyone voting outside Canada to provide proof of Canadian citizenship. The rule does not apply to members of the Canadian Armed Forces, of whom we are extremely proud. I would like to take this opportunity to mention the extraordinary work they are doing against the terrorist threat constituted by the Islamic State in Iraq.
Getting back to the citizen voting act, I would like to talk about another problem that affects the system as it currently exists. Canadians living abroad do not have to prove that they lived in the riding in which they vote. They can in fact vote in the riding of their choice, on the basis of unverified personal or family ties. Voters living in Canada, on the other hand, have to vote in the riding in which they are residing when the election is held. They cannot choose their riding. It is unfair to allow someone who has never lived in a community to vote for the person who will represent that community. That is why the citizen voting act will ensure that Canadians living abroad are bound by the same rules as those who live in Canada.
Canadians living abroad will have to provide proof of their identity and their most recent Canadian address with the same documentation required of voters who live in Canada, namely photo identification with their previous address or two of the 39 pieces of identification approved by the CEO of Elections Canada. If they do not have a piece of identification showing their previous address, voters living abroad may use an attestation as to their previous address produced by a voter in the same riding who has proven their identity.
Like the Canadian public, we believe it is reasonable to require that a person provide proof of their identity and their address in order to be entitled to vote. Canadian residents who happen to be abroad when an election is held, people like the snowbirds, have to apply for a special ballot at each election and produce pieces of identification and proof of residence. It is a different matter for citizens living abroad, who, once they have applied for a ballot for an election, automatically receive a ballot for every subsequent election at their overseas address, even though we do not know whether or not they still live there.
That is why the citizen voting act is so necessary. It will remove this inequality between Canadians by establishing a single set of rules for citizens who vote outside Canada.
The citizen voting act strengthens the rules that apply to special ballots to match the standards of integrity adopted when the Fair Elections Act was passed last June. It harmonizes the rules for voters whether they are temporarily or permanently residing outside Canada.
The Citizen Voting Act contains measures to safeguard the integrity of our electoral system.
To summarize, we will establish a single register, the National Register of Electors, which will be maintained by Elections Canada, for voters who reside in Canada or who are in Canada when an election is held.
The existing information on non-residents will be retained, and all of the information on voters will now be included in the national register. We will ensure that people living outside Canada—other than members of the Canadian Armed Forces—who want to vote have to produce proof of citizenship.
Voters living abroad will no longer be able, as they were in the past, to choose the riding in which they want to vote without showing a connection to that community, and they will be able to obtain a ballot only for their most recent address in Canada. They will be subject to the same rules as other Canadian citizens with respect to identification and proof of residence.
Lastly, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration will be authorized to provide Elections Canada with information about non-citizens so that their names can be removed from the voters list.
Canada has one of the world’s most generous electoral systems with respect to the right to vote. Many democracies like ours place restrictions on voting by non-residents. I am thinking of Ireland, for example, where non-residents cannot vote. Canada is much more generous with respect to the right to vote. It is therefore reasonable to expect citizens living abroad to meet the same identification requirements as those living in Canada.
Since our government came to power, it has worked tirelessly to reform the Canada Elections Act, so that our system remains one of the most respected in the world. Each of the government’s successive reforms have sought to maintain the integrity and fairness of our electoral system.
The Citizen Voting Act is part of that series of reforms and demonstrates once again our government’s commitment to strengthening the integrity and fairness of our electoral system.