Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. My source for that number is Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the former Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, who is a highly respected expert on electoral affairs and has an enormous knowledge of the electoral system in Canada. He provided a report after every election, as you know, and

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If I might speak to that, just to be a little more precise, what the amendment deals with is the following scenario. Here's a typical situation: someone lives in a rural area and there isn't a street address; the municipal authority hasn't given them a number on the street they l

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. This bill, C-18, and actually I thought I was addressing it in my comments, deals with fixing one of the problems that was created by Bill C-31, and that is the rural voters. That's a very serious problem, and as I said, it's good to see that Parliament is doing something to

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Parliament has very limited constitutional authority to legislate in relation to voting. The Supreme Court of Canada has made it clear that section 3 of the Charter of Rights is one of the most absolute sections there is. It's immune from the notwithstanding clause, and unlike, s

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's certainly my view that we have a very powerful case. A decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2002 required the government to permit federal prisoners to vote, and we have documented the case. One of our petitioners in this matter was in and out of trouble in his previou

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Last winter Mr. Kingsley predicted that some 5% of voters would have difficulty casting ballots because of Bill C-31. That estimate was extrapolated from the experience of urban voters in Toronto municipal elections. Some 14 million Canadians voted in the last general parliamenta

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I have a brief suggestion, if I can.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That would be an endorsement for the person taking the declaration to simply describe the inquiries they undertook.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'd suggest it would be very difficult to totally eliminate the possibility of fraud in this context without having very draconian measures. I don't think that even the amendments in the legislation, necessarily.... If someone is determined to vote twice, fraudulently, they proba

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, I think what we've suggested is that along with simply adding to the legislation and the list of acceptable forms of identification, one of them be a statutory declaration on the prescribed form. As I said earlier, no identification is perfect, but because of the criminal san

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'd suggest that the issue, given the concern you've got, is what is a sufficient impediment to minimize the amount of fraud that might take place? I think that is probably what the question is going to be. So how onerous do you have to make it in order to discourage fraud to the

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think Ms. Bradford has a fair amount, so I'll be brief and give her an opportunity to say a little more. With regard to the point that's just been made, softening some of the restrictions so you might still achieve some of the objectives you want would I think be a very worthw

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The address issue is a very serious problem, because people move a lot in this country, and students are an example. A lot of other groups do too--people who are tenants--so even if they have a driver's licence and a passport, it may well not have the correct address. Then they'd

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If I can comment on that, being on the voters list does not eliminate the requirement of identification, so the enumeration doesn't resolve the problem. I just hope there's no misunderstanding.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That would assist somewhat. I think there's a problem, and that might reduce it somewhat. On why the person would have to work, I just question how that relates to the objective, which is—