Former Reform party leader Preston Manning got it right in expressing his concerns about the fair elections act last week.
“It seems to me that the biggest challenge that we have with [the] Canadian electoral system is not its fairness, although one has to address that, but it is this declining participation in elections generally,” the
Toronto Star quoted him as telling a parliamentary committee last week.
So while the government has every right to seek to tighten the rules to ensure fair elections, it’s also equally important to look for ways to maintain and increase voter participation. With turnouts declining, it’s crucial, in fact.
It was good, then, to hear Manning and respected former auditor general Sheila Fraser expressing their concerns about the move to restrict Elections Canada’s ability to conduct outreach activities aimed at encouraging voter participation. At the same time, critics have raised legitimate worries about the bill’s proposal to end the process whereby one voter can vouch for the identity of someone else. As a result, there’s a real concern the act will help decrease voter turnout even further if people are unable to produce the required identification.
The Conservatives deserve the benefit of the doubt that they have real concerns about vouching. But in the absence of concrete evidence that it’s causing problems, ending vouching is going too far. Instead, the government should look for ways to deal with problems with vouching that arise through, for example, increased enforcement of the rules. As we know, the actual problem we have seen is the misuse of robocalls, and the bill rightly takes aim at that through a mandatory public registry and beefing up penalties for misconduct.
With so much division over the bill and the need to tackle voter participation as much as elections fraud, the government should reconsider its position. An elections bill is something that should have broad support and it’s clear this one doesn’t. Go back to the drawing board and come up with a bill that focuses on the real problems in our elections system.
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Glenn Kauth
