Procedure and House Affairs committee  I wouldn't have anything to add to that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Very quickly, I would just say yes. People who vote in advance polls, we seem to indicate, have higher socio-economic status, meaning they not only know where the advance polls are but also have better means to get there. So if you increase the locations for advance polls and the

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In terms of the advance polls and the weather and the election-specific effects, we don't know. One can only intuitively assume that in a winter election, the parties were probably telling the voters they had identified as core voters that if the weather was nice, they should get

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would agree. I think that's a concern. The other concern is that if this does become a second full day of elections, then we have to think about media blackouts and pollings and all those other kinds of implications that follow along with it. When one can report polling result

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Maybe Jon is better geared to talk about the voter ID card. In terms of the $34 million and is this the best use of money, I think we haven't even talked about electronic voting. That's such a huge issue. I think this is a far better first step than going down that road at this

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would say the same as Jon. I don't have much more to add about that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I agree. In the absence of any hard data, we can't make any definitive conclusions. I think it would improve things. How dramatically, I don't know. Certainly, at the risk of being on the record, if it's the youth we're after, we don't have to open the polling stations before noo

Procedure and House Affairs committee  --but I think opening on Sunday would help.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think by-elections are a good test, in the sense that political parties put an awful lot of resources into by-elections, and they're targeted. If you look at the patterns of victories in by-elections versus victories in the subsequent elections or defeats by party, they'r

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First of all, it's nice to appear before a committee where everybody has the same goal, so this is really a great opportunity. To clarify remarks, Elections Canada I think is loath to engage in an election-day survey of people who voted. I just want to make that clear. They actu

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, it's a very good question. I think my real concern is having too many advance polls well prior to election day because I think we lose the ebb and flow of an election. We lose the build-up of an election and the dialogue that takes place among individuals, among Canadians.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, my apologies.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's not been the first time I've been told I talk too quickly.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's one of the politest times I've been told. Barry Kay and Chris Cattle argue that differences between advance poll results and election day results in 2004 suggested there was a swing against the Conservative Party. Their argument was essentially that we may want to look at a

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for the kind invitation to appear. I will say that I managed to raise quite a few eyebrows yesterday when I told my colleagues I was going to Parliament Hill to appear in front of a committee at 11 a.m. I realize I only have a few minutes, so I'll