Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Professor Lewis, I also want to follow up on what Mr. DeCourcey was talking about earlier, the falling rate of participation among so-called western democracies. There is one country, though, that regularly bucks the trend, and that is Australia, which regularly gets low- to mid-nineties in turnout because they have mandatory voting.
Yesterday in Charlottetown we heard witness testimony from a citizen of Australia, Ms. Anna Keenan. She's now living in Canada. Her perspective on mandatory voting was illuminating for us, because her explanation of Australian political culture was that mandatory voting is not really a subject in itself. Everyone just sees that as a regular duty. You just show up at the polls and you do your thing. I lived in Australia in 2013 when they were having their federal election. I can remember talking to local Australians, members of my wife's family, and it's just not really a big issue. You just show up at the poll and do your thing.
One interesting thing that Ms. Keenan mentioned to us was that it forced political parties in Australia to step out of their comfort zones. Here in Canada, it's all about polling the votes. If you look at individual ridings, parties have their strongholds in different areas of the riding. They don't really have to reach beyond that.
I'm just wondering about your views on mandatory voting. I'd like to hear your feedback on that.