Have your say for Fair Elections in Canada

The Globe and Mail's series on the Fair Elections Act counters the Democratic Reform Minister's many concerns:

1. Voter fraud threat: if vouching is eliminated and people cannot use the Elections Canada Information Card as part of the identification process, thousands of voters will be disenfranchised. In 2012, in Toronto, the Supreme Court urged Elections Canada to improve when it found that the voters were ligitimate and had voted in good faith. An Elections Canada compliance review came to the same conclusion.
2. Campaign expense costs
3. Appointment of election officers
4. Elections Canada impartiality
5. Elections Canada public outreach & research
   

What are the real issues? 
The Globe and Mail believes that the real issues are not being addressed: 1) consistent training for election officials; 2) complex rules; and 3) low voter turnout.

Living in Canada, we expect to experience all that democracy has to offer including the right to vote in transparent elections. On the 4th February 2014, the Democratic Reform Minister, Pierre Poilievre, "introduced a sweeping bill designed to protect the fairness of federal elections."

The Fair Elections Act promises to "ensure everyday citizens are in charge of democracy, by putting special interests on the sidelines and rule-breakers out of business. ... The bill also makes it harder to break elections law. It closes loopholes to big money, imposes new penalties on political imposters who make rogue calls, and empowers law enforcement with sharper teeth, a longer reach and a freer hand.” In short, it will implement thirty-eight of the Chief Electoral Officer’s past recommendations.

After all that happened in the last federal election, these statements sound really promising. Why then is there such outcry especially from academia?

Questions to ask ourselves
What powers has the Chief Electoral Officer? Why would the Democratic Reform Minister want to limit those powers and freedom of speech? What do you think? Do you feel you should have been consulted? Please tell us what you think and feel.