Good afternoon everybody.
Good day. Thank you for allowing me to be here.
My name is Joe Foster, and I am chair of the federal council for the Green Party of Canada and also the shadow cabinet advocate for human rights. Formerly I was the shadow cabinet advocate for democracy and good government. I think there's a difference between those two things.
I am pleased that we are able to speak to you today. I have just a few quick comments as introduction.
I do think this bill misses the mark in terms of improving voting. There is much more to be done. I had the good fortune to listen to the other two groups earlier this morning, and I hope there'll be some time to comment on those things.
I did a straw poll last night among some friends—I don't think any of them were Green—and to my surprise they were quite against increasing the number of voting days. They said we can go to the returning officer, we have the advance polls, and we also have the polling day itself. But the most cogent comment made was that if you increase the voting day to include Sunday, the usual moral suasion that surrounds “Have you voted yet today, and if not, are you going to today?” disappears. People can say they'll do it tomorrow, but mañana never comes. So I think that is a major issue.
Hopefully I can talk about young people--I think the young people who need to be targeted are below the age of 18--and about getting them interested in democratic responsibility.