On partial fixes

The Cons have unveiled a bill to re-enfranchise some of the voters who would have been unable to vote under their last Canada Elections Act amendment. But as I'd suspected, the Cons' fix is limited to the rural voters who are more likely to back Harper, while the continued disenfranchisement of transient voters is apparently seen by the Cons as a feature rather than a bug:

The Conservative government introduced a bill on Friday aimed at fixing a glitch in the Elections Act that could have prevented up to a million rural residents from voting.

In June, Parliament passed amendments to the Canada Elections Act that required each voter produce proof of identity and a residential address before being allowed to cast a ballot.

However, more than one million Canadians living in rural areas don't have an address that includes a street name and number. Many use post office boxes instead.

The problem also extends to native reserves, where a resident's address is sometimes simply the name of the reserve...

The bill introduced Friday clarifies that addresses do not need to contain a street name and number.

What also appears to be "clarified" is that proof of a current permanent address would still be required. Which means that Canadian citizens who can't provide that will continue to be deprived of their right to vote if the Cons' bill passes.

Of course, there's no guarantee that any of the opposition parties will be as compliant now as the Libs and Bloc both were when C-31 was up for consideration in the last session of Parliament. And while the track record may not be positive for either party, it's not yet too late for the Libs and Bloc to decide that this time, they'll defend the right of Canadians to vote rather than going along with the Cons' voter suppression strategy.