I agree with you that if these efforts by Elections Canada or the elections offices in the provinces to increase participation simply consist of advertising campaigns and urging the obvious that people don't respond to, if that's all they can do, then that is insufficient. I think most of the elections offices themselves agree with that, but I therefore think that greater and more profound efforts need to be made to try to increase participation.
There is a need for more scientific study to get to the root of people not participating in the process. I think some of that could be done by the elections offices, but I think everybody who's a player in the game—Elections Canada, the parties, the candidates—has a vested interest in increasing this. The reason I am in favour of restricting the vouching provisions is that I think the emphasis should be on getting people to get their name on the list and not on facilitating voting by those whose names are not on the list. I think that's one of the reasons many of the provinces don't allow vouching.
Those of us who have been candidates for public office know that one of the easiest and most credible entrees into the mind of the voter is when you knock on the door, go to a house, and ask if they are on the voters list. When they say they don't know or they're not, then we make the effort to get them on the voters list whether they like you as a candidate or anything else. I'm making a plea. Any and every effort to increase the number of names on the voters list is a good thing.
I also reflect on the fact that in the civil rights movement in the United States, this voter registration business was particularly effective in getting people who had been marginalized, people from minority groups, into the process. Get registered, get your name on the list. As you suggested, I think empowering Elections Canada to pursue that objective in better ways than we had in the past would be a good thing.
One other thing that's occurred to me is that maybe another way for the government to come at this is to put out a genuine request for proposals with some funding behind it asking if anybody in the country can figure out a way to get better participation in elections. Then look at the proposals, let Elections Canada be one of the people making a proposal. This student vote group, which I think has done a good job in trying to do this with young people, may be another route to try to address this problem.