Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much, all of you, for your attendance.
One thing that's an observation—I'm going to read a quote and then ask for some comments—is that we've been talking about whether or not the registry, the international register of electors, should exist or be blown up, and whether is it broken or not. All of us, including the Chief Electoral Officer, have made the argument that it's not broken. I haven't heard a witness yet come forward and say, “It's broken, please fix it.”
But what I want to point out is that not one government member has taken the floor to defend it, to give the arguments as to why this is a good idea. When it gets to the point where virtually everybody, including the government by virtue of their silence, feels that this is a dumb idea, at some point somebody's got to bell this cat.
What I'd like to do for all three of our witnesses is to read from our Chief Electoral Officer's presentation on May 7 of this year:
The second and perhaps most significant change proposed by Bill C-50 is the elimination of the International Register of Electors. All electors abroad who wish to vote by special ballot, other than military electors, will now be required to make an application after the writs are issued. They would have to provide proof of citizenship, in addition to proving their identity and residence. If they no longer reside in Canada, they would have to prove what was their last place of ordinary residence here.... It is clear that these new rules will make it harder for electors abroad to vote.
Continuing the quote, he said:
Currently, once electors residing abroad have established entitlement to be included in the international register, they will automatically be mailed a voting kit after the writs are issued. In this regard, the international register was designed to reduce the number of situations in which an elector is unable to return a completed ballot in time for the election day. Under Bill C-50, electors would now have to make an application after the issue of the writs and send it to Elections Canada from whatever part of the globe they find themselves in. The application will have to be processed, a voting kit mailed out, and their completed ballot returned by 6 p.m. on election day. While we would strive to reduce the delays as much as possible, the challenge for electors abroad would be unavoidably increased. Both of these concerns—that is, the problem with having to repeatedly prove a former residence and the difficulty for electors to return their ballot in time—result from the abolition of the International Register of Electors. I see no reason why the International Register of Electors should be abolished or how maintaining the register isn't compatible with the objectives of the bill.
I'd like comments from our guests, please, in whatever order you want to recognize them, Chair.