The Australian system is very different, of course, as you know. In Australia, there are legal consequences if you do not vote. There is a mandatory requirement for voting, so people are voting for a very different reason. They are voting to avoid a penalty. They are voting to avoid a fine, in many cases. So I would not be surprised that you would find a different pattern of behaviour there.
That being said, I haven't particularly analyzed it. I'm not sure how much wisdom that would provide us, because it is such a different context.
I look at this first trial run—the results that I spoke of that were provided by Elections Canada—that showed a very favourable response in terms of people being able to vote. Most used photo ID, the first preferred option. It was 80% who used a photo identification to vote. Most often that was a driver's licence; 73% of that 80% were using a driver's licence, 73% overall of the 100% who voted. Of those who used option two, 19% used things like hospital cards, utility bills, the attestation letters I referred to, leases, and some of the other ones. I'm sure you've seen the lengthy list of identification that the Chief Electoral Officer has considered to be acceptable, and 1% were vouched for.
In terms of the need for vouching, it appears that we have a roughly comparable number using the attestation letters as being vouched. So in terms of the analysis, there we have it from the first set of elections or by-elections under Bill C-31. And from what I see here, and I'll use this summary from Environics who did the work for Elections Canada--so it's an independent group, independent from Elections Canada. They're not a group interested in showing that it worked; they're a group that was simply looking to analyze it--and I quote here. It says:
The vast majority of voters found the identification requirements easy to meet and were quite satisfied with the ID verification and voting process. Most have a favourable view of the new ID provisions.
So my response would be to compliment the members of this committee for the original initiative and the parliamentary committee report that led to Bill C-31, and as well for their work on C-31. Yes, we found subsequently that it's not perfect, and that's why we're here today to correct these glitches. But I think that--