Unless something else really really really stupid comes-up related to Bill C-31 and Elections Canada's veil clarification I think I'll move along to watching the paint dry on my just painted patio deck.
But to finish off:
At the time Bill C-31 was being considered by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, as is the custom, the sponsoring Minister is available for committee questions.
C-31 was sponsored by Minister Rob Nicholson then the Minister for Democratic Reform. The following is the Minister's opening statement to the committee from the evidence on November 23, 2006.
See any reference to "unimpeded faces"? Jeez, eh!
Hon. Rob Nicholson (Minister for Democratic Reform):
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to introduce Natasha Kim, a policy analyst in legislation and House planning in the Privy Council Office; Raymond MacCallum, counsel in the human rights law section of the Department of Justice; and beside me is Dan McDougall, director of operations for legislation and House planning in the Privy Council Office.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting me to speak on Bill C-31. But most importantly, and to begin with, I would like to thank you and all the members of your committee for the work you did on the 13th report.
I can tell you that the government has reviewed your report very carefully. We tabled a response on October 20, supporting in principle virtually all of the recommendations you made in that report.
But we did not stop there. Bill C-31 was introduced shortly thereafter, on October 24, and as you know, it is based on the recommendations from the 13th report, recommendations aimed at improving the integrity of the electoral process, recommendations originating from this committee that were developed in a non-partisan, collaborative way.
Mr. Chair, if you take the bill and the government's response together, I think they represent very clearly the intention of this committee, and indeed changes to Bill C-31 at this stage would probably mean revisiting the committee's original recommendations.
That being said, the government is, of course, open to listening to such changes, if it is the will of the committee members, but I would simply say that I agree with Monsieur Guimond, who, in his second reading remarks on November 7, said that Bill C-31 came from an “excellent collaboration among the political parties”.
This is an issue of common concern for all parties, and I would hope you will do everything within your power to expedite the passage of this bill.
I would like to turn to addressing some of the measures in the bill. Because the bill implements the committee's own report, I won't review every measure, of which there are many; rather, having reviewed the second reading debate, there are three in particular that I will address. I will quickly discuss these three issues: voter identification, date of birth on the voters' list, and the unique identifier. I will then take your questions.
First, I'd like to spend some time on the issue of voter identification. Bill C-31 implements the committee's recommendation on this point, and the recommendation had no dissenting opinions. It was formulated after the committee discussed the issue with the Chief Electoral Officer, the Privacy Commissioner, and representatives from the four major political parties. Concerns were raised at that time about ensuring that no voters were disadvantaged because of not having identification.
The result was the balanced approach recommended by the committee and reflected in this piece of legislation. It allows three options: a photo ID, with name and address; two pieces of other identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer; or, for those without identification, an oath or affirmation and a voucher.
This is very similar to the current process for registering at the polls, and I think it is important to spend a minute on this point. As you know, to register at the polls you need to have identification or to take an oath and have someone vouch for you.
The Canada Elections Act already forbids vouching for more than one person to get them registered. We have had these safeguards in place for polling day registration for many years. Bill C-31 simply extends the same safeguards from the registration stage to the voting stage, as the committee recommended.
I would emphasize that amendments were made to the Canada Elections Act in 2000 to allow a shelter to be considered a residence. This provision, subsection 8(6) of the act, will continue to apply to facilitate voting by those without a fixed address.
Mr. Chair, the voter identification process will bring the federal system in line with other jurisdictions that require identification, including the province of Quebec, a number of Canadian municipalities, and many other countries.
By providing three options for meeting the ID requirement, Bill C-31 will provide greater voting accessibility than some jurisdictions that do not provide any alternatives to photo ID. For example, some American states that do not provide alternatives to photo ID have encountered legal challenges; on the other hand, states that provide alternatives like those found in Bill C-31 have not.
Each jurisdiction must determine for itself what works best for its system and its electors, and I think we have found the right balance in Bill C-31 between maintaining voter accessibility and protecting the integrity of the Canadian electoral system. Indeed, without a system that functions with integrity, the right to vote would become meaningless.
If you review the evidence from any of the additional 4 committee meetings held regarding Bill C-31 you will also not find any reference to "unimpeded faces", "veils" "burkas", "niqabs", "paper-bags" or "Halloween masks". In others words the committee was not concerned with faces covered or not.
Given politicians' reaction to the Elections Canada clarification, I guess the committee members and MPs, in general, thought they were concerned about faces or took for granted they were concerned, or, or, or, or, something ..... . As I said in my previous post idiots.
The veil thing or its potential was not an issue. As you can see the list of witnesses heard by the committee didn't included anyone concerned with veils of the religious, cultural or social type.
There were concerns by citizens about how to identify homeless people or transient individuals and First Nations people living in isolated communities where street and house numbers are not used to specify a residence and where individuals may not have provincial or territorial drivers licenses or federal passports or any photo-ID.
So is this silly issue finished, I hope so. Oh, but we'll get more pontificating no doubt.
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