The research we have is in progress, so I don't want to make a strong “research says” kind of conclusion. In addition to everything I've already stated, however, one thing that's becoming clear is that the nature of the Internet, and particularly one's online past, has had a chilling effect. We've had candidates in the city of Calgary in the federal election who were dropped because of things that were posted on the Internet when they were children. This would be about the age of 15 or 16 or somewhere along those lines.
This is where there is an interesting intersection between youth voting and standing for office. If somebody is the age of majority at enfranchisement, at 18, does this mean that things we can dig up about them online are onside if they choose to be a candidate at 22? I'm on the record as saying that I think what people do in their private lives—and even in their professional lives, to be honest—decades or years before they choose to seek elected office are maybe things that we ought to consider as.... I'm skeptical that they're good indicators of what kind of representative somebody would be. Other people will feel differently about that.