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OTTAWA - Stephane Dion says Liberals will not support a bill compelling veiled Muslim women to show their faces if they want to vote in federal elections.
Dion admits that his Liberals overreacted in the heat of crucial Quebec byelection campaigns two months ago, when they joined the three other federal parties in demanding that Elections Canada require all voters to uncover their faces.
"Nobody's perfect," the Liberal leader said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"In the heat of the Outremont election, everybody reacted right away and, when you consider it over time, when you see the bill the government is presenting, I think it's fair to say the bill is missing its target."
The issue arose days before three byelections in Quebec, where the issue of veiled Muslim voters was part of a heated debate over how far the province should go in accommodating immigrants and their different religious and cultural customs.
The Quebec government, with the support of all parties, recently changed its own law making visual identification compulsory in provincial elections.
The vote in Outremont, a Liberal bastion in Montreal, was a particularly crucial test for Dion. His fledgling leadership was thrown into tumult when the riding was ultimately won by the NDP.
At the time, Dion was among the federal politicians who urged Elections Canada to revisit its decision not to compel voters to show their faces.
"It's important to identify the person," he said then. "It may be done in a very respectful way but it must be done."
The chief electoral officer, Marc Mayrand, refused to comply, pointing out that recent amendments to the Elections Act do not specifically require voters to uncover their faces.
The Conservative government subsequently introduced legislation to require visual identification but Dion said the bill doesn't accomplish what it purports to do, which is to prevent voter fraud.
The idea of voters showing their faces "makes sense" at first blush but Dion said: "When you know more the situation, it doesn't make sense anymore."
The bill does not require voters to produce photo identification, he noted. Voters may show two pieces of non-photo identification or have someone swear to their identity.
As well, Canadians abroad may vote by mail.
Without compulsory photo identification with which to compare their faces, Dion said it's illogical to insist that all voters uncover their faces.
Some Liberal MPs have recently expressed uneasiness with the bill, fearing it targets Muslims and violates equality guarantees in the Charter of Rights. But until now, the Liberal party has not officially declared it will vote against it.
The Bloc Quebecois also opposes the bill but for entirely different reasons. Bloc MPs object to the fact that veiled women will be allowed to uncover their faces privately before female polling officials.
New Democrat Paul Dewar says the party will not support the bill as written.
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