Procedure and House Affairs committee  Government 5, G-5, but I have of course excluded the voter information card as being one of the pieces of ID for two reasons. One, it's primarily valuable for address anyway and even if we had won the earlier vote, this exclusion would still have made sense.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Many of them will be able to find these, with different degrees of effort, but certainly, let's say, at least in the thousands will not. I'd like to move this amendment NDP-27, to achieve the return of voter information cards as something the Chief Electoral Officer may authorize.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  But I make the humble suggestion that in a country where many millions of people vote across the country, with inadequately trained personnel—we all concede that occurs—with inadequate voters lists—we all concede that, including the CEO, who points out that the voter information card has a 14% error rate with regard to identity.... The voter information card is issued on the basis of the preliminary voters list, not the final voters list, which admittedly is improved.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We also believe that the voter information card is very important and should be maintained. If you look at the evidence, between 36% and 73% of Canadians who were part of a 900,000-person pilot used this card, and there was no reported fraud whatsoever.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  But they still have the right to vote. The vouching system and the new system using the voter information card are two measures that made sure that no one was left by the wayside. I have here figures showing that, depending on the way in which you calculate the number, we presently have between 300,000 and 900,000 people in Canada considered homeless or with no fixed address.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Homeless Canadians were denied the right to vote, but measures were put in place over the years whereby they could use a shelter as an address. In terms of where we've come today with the voter information card and vouching, I'm really hoping the government will listen to everyone's comments and keep this in place. People don't have ID because they're struggling with issues, not because they don't want to follow the rules.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Neufeld made a number of recommendations, and none of them included the elimination of vouching or voter information cards. It is also extremely important that elections be independent and transparent. One of the problems with Bill C-23 is that it changes the rules by which election officials, including central poll supervisors, are selected.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In many cases it's because they weren't aware of what ID they could have brought and so took that option. The same applies in the case of the voter information card. It may have just been something they had with them, so they used it. I'm curious as to whether you asked your members a couple of questions. Would you have asked whether they actually had the ID available to them to vote, if they couldn't have used one of these methods?

Democratic Reform  Speaker, what I said was absolutely accurate. In fact, there are documented cases where people received multiple voter information cards. I gave the example, which was documented by the French CBC, where two Montrealers each received two voter information cards and therefore each voted twice. The fact that a comedy show was able to carry this out right under the noses of Elections Canada is yet more evidence that these cards cannot be relied upon.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mayrand, this was a pilot project that worked very well. Both of them recommended that the use of the voter information card be broadened. By itself, the voter's information card is not sufficient to prove one's identity when voting. If the voter's card was incorrect, this does not mean that this could lead to fraud because when it is time to vote, you have to present another ID card and the information on that second piece of ID has to correspond to the information on the voter's card.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely, we did view the ability to use the voter information card as being a positive experience. In the last election, we contacted directly 313 first nations to inform them of the various ways to vote, and that was an important tool that was utilized.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In terms of the reasons they didn't vote, when he looked at them, he came to the conclusion that not receiving a voter information card—largely, I think, because of mobility, as they move around a lot—was a key component in why they wouldn't vote. There was a low level of awareness of the different ways to vote; that's for unemployed youth not in school.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It seems to me that much of what is going on in this bill is an attempt to deal with this, including the fact that the voter information card will not be permissible as a means of proving identity, something that does not exist under the current law but which the Chief Electoral Officer announced he would be doing in the future.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Were you aware that the voter information card, which comes from the official list of electors, comes from such things as tax rolls and the aggregated information that government has on someone? If someone is at the margins, would it be fair to say they might not appear on the official list of electors to begin with?

Democratic Reform  Speaker, when she talks about 500,000 voters, she is assuming that every person who used a voter information card had no other option. The vast majority of Canadians did not even have the right to use voter information cards as proof of identity during the last election. We believe it is reasonable to let Canadians choose one of 39 pieces of identification to prove their identity when they go to vote.