Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My colleague, Mr. Proulx, was very greedy and put both hands into the candy dish. I will try to come up with other questions. I was asking myself the very same questions with respect to the recruitment of election staff, training, compensation, etc.
Instead I will talk about the fluidity of the vote. You are no doubt concerned about the decrease in voter turnout that we observed during the last vote. If we look at the past five or six elections, we can clearly see that we are on a downward slope. I would imagine that the members of your team and you are looking for ways to encourage participation, but we have to go beyond advertising and the Internet. People who show up must at least be able to exercise their right to vote. Unfortunately, this does not always happen. I could spend the next 24 hours giving you examples. I once talked for 5 hours and 45 minutes during a filibuster... But still Mr. Lukiwski broke my record!
I'd like to give you a little example. Polling day was beginning but the list of voters was not contained in the polling boxes. That caused a 40-minute delay. As a result, 50 people who were waiting in line left, and it so happened that this occurred in the riding of Laurier—Sainte-Marie, my leader's riding.
I can tell you many other similar horror stories. We need to speed up operations at the polling booths, and I do know what I'm talking about. Perhaps not all candidates do that, and I do not claim to be the only one to do so, but on the day of an election, I begin at 9:30 and I travel 351 kilometres; I visit nearly 70% of the polling booths in my riding. I then vote in my area at 8:00 p.m. So I begin at 9:30 and I make the rounds, I shake hands. By the way, we need to clarify the legislation so that it stipulates that candidates are entitled to enter the polling offices and shake the hands of all of the election workers and candidates. We've had a problem, and I have too. Election workers checked with the returning officer and were told that this practice is tolerated but that the law was not clear on the matter. This clarification needs to be made.
In some locations, it can be 6°C outside, particularly when the election takes place in the fall. When it's raining and 150 people are waiting outside in the rain, it means that people have to be determined if they want to vote. You are a father, Mr. Mayrand, just imagine a young couple in their 30s who are starting to lose interest in politics and are beginning to get fed up with politicians. The man asks his employer for permission to leave at 4:00 p.m. instead of at 5:00 p.m. He is with his spouse, they are in the car, they've picked up the kids at the day care centre. The kids start squabbling and crying. They get to the polling station and see 150 people waiting outside. In your opinion, will they stop in order to vote? No, they will not go. The reality for them is about the routine of homework, bath time and all that this entails. I am giving you this example of a young couple in their 30s, but there are also a lot of baby-boomers who have other activities, whether it be bridge lessons, poker, a hockey league; you can think of all kinds of activities.
Basically, I think that the process does not run smoothly enough. You would almost think that some individuals feel compelled to slow things down in certain locations, but at any rate, the system is not working well, not in the vast majority of locations. Sometimes, the polling stations are managed properly.
I would like to mention a small detail that would save six seconds. While one voter is marking his X in the polling booth, we could invite the next person to identify himself. So when one person leaves the polling both, the other is ready to go in. But no, no one else can go to the table until the person in the polling both leaves. This is a detail and I am no expert as you are, but you should consider this issue. I would like to hear your comments, and I have many other questions that I can ask you after that.