It is seldom that a piece of government legislation can get the voting public riled up.
For the most part, outside of the budget and major policy issues such as pipelines-through-parks, what the federal government does goes largely unnoticed. I am not sure I recall the last piece of legislation that I read in its entirety.
The Fair Election Act has been kicking up a storm, though. And it isn't just the usual suspects that are taking the government to task. Even some Conservative party members have some discomfort with the legislation.
But not Minister of State for Democratic Reform Pierre Poilievre. In an editorial in the Globe and Mail, he attempted to defend the government's position. The article was entitled Why the Fair Elections Act is, in fact, fair.
"The bill requires voters to choose from 39 pieces of acceptable identification to prove identity and residence. Photo ID will not be required, but simply having someone vouch for a voter's identity - without so much as a utility bill to back it up - will no longer suffice."
Almost sounds reasonable except when you start to think about it.
Let's try a hypothetical. A new customer shows up at your store and would like to order a substantial purchase. It is going to cost you a lot of money to bring it in and you will only receive payment if the customer comes back to pay for it.
Which would you choose as a form of vouching for this customer - one of your employees saying that they know the individual in question and they are a friend or having the customer show you a utility bill?
Personally, I want to have the personal reference. Indeed, it is why I get lots of phone calls at this time of year to provide references for students seeking employment. As an employer, I do not accept unsolicited letters of reference for applicants.
Something about being able to find out directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak, if a person is of good character is important.
But is vouching really a big problem? Are there lots of people abusing the vouching process so that they can vote?
According to Mr. Poilievre: "The risks of vouching are obvious at a glance. Worse, the safeguards against these risks were violated in 50,735 cases... in the 2011 election, according to Elections Canada's own compliance report."
That is a large number but it is dwarfed by the 12,490,692 people that voted in the election. And that was not all of the voters that were eligible to vote.
Nor does Mr. Poilievre even explore what those violations of vouching were. Just the number of cases. Were they truly voter fraud?
Or could they simply be cases of people signing the wrong part of the form? Or having illegible signatures? Or vouching for someone that they weren't technically eligible to vouch for?
Still, even if you give Mr. Poilievre his changes to the vouching procedure in our federal elections, there is much else in the Fair Election Act that is decidedly undemocratic especially coming from a Minister of State for Democratic Reform. (And could someone please explain to me why Canada has a Minister of State for Democratic Reform? What's wrong with democracy?)
The legislation addresses campaign financing. Candidates face limits on what they can spend. The bill would exempt fundraising calls to anyone who has donated $20 or more in the previous five years.
The bill limits what the Chief Electoral Officer can say. Not much of a problem in one sense. The Chief Electoral Officer shouldn't be commenting on an election. But it also prohibits the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada from running ads encouraging people to vote.
The bill will also supply the parties with "bingo cards" - scorekeeping cards that tell them who voted in each riding. Not which party they voted for; just whether or not they exercised their franchise. The potential for abuse is enormous.
About the only aspect of the legislation that truly makes sense is the requirement that robo-calling firms, and the people or groups that hire them, keep track of every single call that they make. More to the point, they must record each call. The dates and time for live calls must also be kept for a year along with the scripts that were used.
All of this should prevent the abuses that some parties engaged in during the 2011 election.
So, is the Fair Election Act a good deal?
In a CBC Interview, Mr. Poilievre claimed that it had significant support. He said that he was in his constituency over the past weekend and hundreds of people told him that they supported it.
Indeed, he was willing to vouch for their support of his legislation.
