Thank you for the question.
I have just two notions in response to that. One is that I provided an appendix to the brief with detailed percentages for every community in the Northwest Territories on the frequency of identification held by residents.
I mentioned that in 27 of 33 of them, it's fewer than 50%. In some of those communities, admittedly quite small communities but their right to vote is no less than anyone else's, we're seeing percentages such as 2% or 4% as opposed to 80% in the city of Yellowknife. In some communities in the Northwest Territories, the frequency with which we find active photo identification held by residents is very low.
Add to that, my understanding is that in some communities in the Northwest Territories, and I'm sure it's true in other northern ridings with a lot of rural communities, it is also difficult to obtain photo identification. If you live in Colville Lake, or Ulukhaktok, or Trout Lake, you don't just walk down to the local DMV office and get a driver's licence. Access just to obtain the card is difficult.
In addition to that, there may be very few incentives to do so if you live in a town where you don't own a car and there's really not much purpose in driving because you can walk to the other end of town and you never fly anywhere. By the way, you don't you need to show identification to fly in the Canadian north anyway. There's very little incentive and very little access to obtaining government-issued photo identification.