First of all, it's nice to appear before a committee where everybody has the same goal, so this is really a great opportunity.
To clarify remarks, Elections Canada I think is loath to engage in an election-day survey of people who voted. I just want to make that clear. They actually do a lot of good surveying to try to increase the vote, so I didn't want that to be read as a criticism of Elections Canada, and there are reasons why they don't want to do exit polling, essentially. A lot of the national election surveys have indicated how many people make up their mind on voting day, or two or three days beforehand, so the committee may want to take a look at some of those national election surveys.
In terms of increasing voter turnout, yes, I think one of the important things is that we have to make sure that Canadians have more opportunities to vote. So if they do not vote, not to necessarily say we can lay the blame on them, but at least they can't say we didn't give them enough opportunity. I think this bill goes a long way to improving the opportunities that every Canadian has to engage in the democratic system, and for that I absolutely support it. So I'd say that.
In terms of door-to-door enumeration, yes, there are problems in terms of getting people to answer doors. Certainly all of you have worked on your own campaigns and knocked on doors. Depending on which neighbourhood you go to, some people don't answer their doors. I do think, though, and I have the beauty of tenure to be able to say this, that door-to-door enumeration is very, very expensive. Democracy is not about saving money, so the $34 million this is going to cost is well worth it. If it costs a few more million to do door-to-door enumeration, or a hybrid, as you say, I'm all in favour of that. My fear with the permanent voters list is that it does actually impact those Canadians who tend to move more, therefore those people who don't own houses. It also impacts new voters and new Canadians, and I think that's part of the biggest problem.