Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both our witnesses for being here.
As a former political science student at Carleton University, I somehow managed to go through the entire thing without ever being in one of your classes, Professor Pammett, and that was probably my misfortune.
I can concur with the insight that for the purposes of getting my vote, there was certainly no need to open the polls on Sundays before noon when I was a student, that's for sure.
I agree with you as well on the problems of the permanent voters list. I got a bit of an insight into this when, inexplicably, between 2004 and 2006 I went from being one voter to three voters on the list. I was living alone, but Scott Reid, Jeffery Reid, and Scott Jeffery Reid were all recorded as living at my address. It's a whole new and different kind of expanded voter opportunity there for you.
Anyway, I've been thinking about why certain people and certain groups come out and vote at advance polls. They're not a simple cross-section of society: seniors come out much more. I'm guessing it has something to do with the same reason seniors get all their Christmas shopping done early; they are able to structure their lives because fewer contingencies arise to throw off their schedule, such as a hockey practice for the kids being changed or something unexpected happening. Those are just the kinds of things that go on when you're a parent and you're earlier on in life.
Given that observation, it strikes me that you'll find that it's certain kinds of seniors--younger seniors, those who are more mobile. I don't know that for a fact; I simply suspect it.
I wanted to ask about the idea of voting at advance polls that are open at all locations. My impression--and it's just an impression, but it seems logical to me, and I wonder if you think I'm right in this--is that people who do not have the mobility to get to advance polls, which may be located far from home and at only a few centralized locations, would be more likely to take advantage of advance polls if they were open at all locations.
I'm thinking here, for example, of students, who typically don't have cars; people who are homeless; shut-in seniors, who may rely upon a family member to come from a different area and drive them to their polling station; those who are handicapped; and those who have similar sorts of needs. In theory, they can vote by other means earlier on, but that doesn't always happen.
Do you agree that this group would likely benefit more than other groups in society from a wider range of locations for advance polling?