Procedure and House Affairs committee  I am here.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's Professor Patti Tamara Lenard.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Thank you very much for having us here today. I'm here representing the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I am also an assistant professor of applied ethics at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and I am here as a research associate with the CCPA. I'm also—some of you may know this—a co-author with several Canadian professors of an open le

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you. I'd like to make several comments. The first is that, to be honest, I spent seven years living in the United States. I'm really reluctant to encourage you, in fact, on the contrary, I'd like to discourage you, from learning lessons about American electoral—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm happy to say that I think partisan polling is a really bad idea. We already have a system of international best practices, according to which partisans are not involved in selecting senior poll clerks in general, so I think that would be the next thing I would attack. I thin

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  But that matters. On the very specific point that you cited, on the question of whether voter ID requirements increase or decrease electoral turnout, the evidence from the United States is highly mixed. On average, taken as a sort of collection of evidence, suggests that the stri

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes I'm happy to. The short and the long version of the issue of public financial contributions is simply one of giving Canadians who have more money greater access to the vote. Every time the government decides to increase campaign contributions rather than decrease them, which

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I definitely think that we should be starting all over again. I think it's really disingenuous of the government to say that the reason for these changes is that we're trying to increase public confidence in an electoral system that people have a lot of confidence in, and that th

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. That's the blunt answer. Do you want me to say more? Yes, it's a problem.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Fundamentally what I think is that if there were fraud in an electoral system, it should be eliminated. In fact, if there were anything harmful about the electoral system, I would think it should be eliminated. But there is no evidence of fraud or harm, and when you propose to

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I agree with that. Mr. Quail said that most Canadians have driver's licences. In fact, I think the last number I saw was that 85% of voting-age Canadians have a driver's licence. There is actually quite a large proportion of Canadians who need to find some alternative way

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm sorry, I can't answer that. I don't have the expertise to answer that question.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Sure. I think that's a better solution than what is offered. Fundamentally the problem with having invited me is that I don't see any problem with the present system, except that it's not permissive enough. I would encourage more permissiveness, but that's not the political mood