Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Hollins, for appearing today.
I'd like to go over for a moment a few of the things that have been raised by Rodger and Marcel on the rejected ballots. You've identified the fact that probably—and I think you're quite correct—the reason there was such a high level of rejected or spoiled ballots is that people were there to vote in the general election and didn't really care about the referendum question. Therefore, they just left the ballots blank.
That obviously lends itself to the larger question as to whether or not referendums should be held in conjunction with general elections. We had a witness yesterday, Professor Boyer, who stated unequivocally—I'm not sure if you saw the testimony or heard it—that he believed referendums should not be held in conjunction with elections. He stated a number of reasons. One example he gave was what happened in 1976 in Saskatchewan. The provincial government, the Progressive Conservative government of the day, brought forward a referendum question on public financing of abortions. His interpretation—and I agree with him, and I was in Saskatchewan at the time—was that he believed the PC government of the day wanted to have this question on the ballot paper as a referendum question in an attempt to get people out to vote against public funding of abortions, and those people would more than likely have voted for the PC Party.
In other words—although he didn't say so in these words—I think the impression was that he felt that political parties might be able to use referendum questions to manipulate public opinion one way or the other politically. He felt that those two events should be separated. I'm wondering first if you have an opinion on that, or if you still believe that referendums should be held in conjunction with elections. I think that's one of the primary questions this committee is going to have to grapple with when we get down to discussing.
I'll be quite honest with you. My original thought process was that for cost savings, there is no reason for me to think otherwise than that the referendum should be held in conjunction with elections. I used to share exactly the same opinion as you just stated this morning. After Professor Boyer's submission yesterday, I'm starting to rethink my position. I think that's a big question that we're all going to have to come up with an answer to, whether referendums should be held in conjunction with general elections. You've stated that you think they should. Based on what I've told you about Professor Boyer's opinion, do you have any reason to doubt that your position is the one you want to stay with?