Thank you.
We have diverted significantly from the bill today, but I think it's an interesting discussion.
When I was a wee lad in the Catholic school system, the bishops always made sure that we had all our sacraments done before we got out of grade eight, because they figured if we were left on our own, we would never do them. That was considered a no-brainer for maintaining the flock size. And yet we have in high school today—And I would disagree with a lot of our talk about young people: I go into the high schools all the time, and I find I get better and more interesting questions from them. We do this whole get-out-to-vote campaign in high school, and yet they can't vote, because they don't vote till they're 18.
Many of our students leave northern Ontario and go to university. At that point, they're not enumerated. They go to university, say to the University of Ottawa or Carleton, or someplace else, and they don't know anybody in the electoral system here. If they did go to vote, they wouldn't have the proper ID to vote, so they don't vote. So we have that disconnect. It starts right there. And I know a number of students who tell me that's what the issue is. And now we have legislation before us—one of our other bills—that will make sure they don't vote unless they can really prove who they are, because we're really trying to get tough on voting.
We have a disconnect, and I would suggest that we should be looking at the voting age. Every time I go to a school, kids say, do you think the voting age should be lowered? At first I didn't agree, but now I'm saying let them vote at 17; let them have that first participation in high school when everyone's there.