Let me try to answer with a very concrete example about which we now have more information. This begins with something that began in the United States, was taken up in Canada, and I've now heard they do this in Sweden as well. That is, they run mock elections in the schools at the time of the regular elections and they use it to inform young people about the elections. They report the actual votes in the media and they use it as a form of political education, civic education.
We now have some pretty good data on the Americans, who have been doing it for a long time, that it actually does have an effect in terms of greater political knowledge and a greater likelihood to vote in the first real election that these young people confront.
In Canada we did this--something called student vote--in the 2004 federal election. I think it was also done in 2006, but I haven't had a chance to look into that. It was also done in several provincial elections.
What happened in 2004? For the 2004 election it worked badly. It worked badly compared to when it was done in British Columbia at the time of the last provincial election. Why did it work badly when it was done in Canada in 2004 and work so well in British Columbia when it was done in the last British Columbia election?
It's very simple. You will remember--you were all part of this--that in the 2004 election in Canada, the government waited until June 28. We were expecting an election and we waited and waited. Finally on June 28, it came. The student vote people had been preparing and by the time of June 28, many of the schools were already either completely out of session or students were on their way out and so on. So in many schools, nothing happened. And even in the schools where it did happen, in many cases the results were not very useful.
That means that the learning experience...and there is an important learning experience, because you have to prepare, you bring politicians in, the civics education and the history teachers get involved--it's a big process. And yet the process was aborted because Mr. Martin had decided it would be a good idea to wait until June 28 to have the election.
In British Columbia, on the other hand, everybody knew it was going to be on May 17. All the planning worked very well. There were no problems.
If we know that the next Canadian election--at least when there is a majority government--will take place on the third Monday in October of the appropriate year, the next time there is a student vote it will certainly be much more effective. That's a very specific example of what we can do to mobilize a particular group that needs mobilization. There is a great deal of data about young people not voting and so on, so here's a very concrete example of where a fixed election date would make a difference. We've experienced that in Canada, and at the very least, it seems to me that if we're not going to do something like that and do it in a very clear way, one has to explain to the people who've worked hard to organize these student votes why not.
I must say that in everything I've heard and everything I've read in relation to people who are skeptical about moving in this direction, I've never seen a good answer to that.
Thank you.