To me it is as important as financing an efficient judicial system. In other words, the courts--the Supreme Court of Canada--have called this a quasi-constitutional right. What price do you attach to the right of a citizen?
His or her right to vote has costs attended to it, and exponentially over the years Parliament and government have improved the electoral act and will continue to do so. Cost is always an issue, but it rarely puts back into question the citizen's right to cast that vote. How can a citizen cast his vote intelligently if he has to pay $500 to get the information he wants to get to the right decision? How do you cost the recovery of that?
To me it's a value judgment. As I said earlier, there are costs, I don't deny that, and we're in tough times. We've been in tough times before. This has to be amortized over the life of a nation, in my view, just like the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There were great costs to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As I recall, in 1983 we were in a recession too.
I don't want to be dismissive of the debate. I think it's important to have the debate, because I think it brings you back to the question you've just asked: why do we have this? If it weren't linked to that, then it's just another program, and I don't think it's just another program.