As I was saying just a few moments ago, the purpose of amendment G-4 is to clarify that the Chief Electoral Officer may implement public education and information programs to make the electoral process better known to students at the primary and secondary levels. There are quite a number of intervenors who mentioned that they had some concerns with the bill before we introduced this amendment, because it would prevent that type of cooperation between the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada and student organizations. This clarifies that. This is in response to things such as Student Vote, civics. It gives certainty that the Chief Electoral Officer may continue with the same public education and information programs that he had been engaged in during previous years.
Also, and this just deals with the advertising, we still contend that the focus of Elections Canada advertising should be on the where, when, and how to vote. We have consistently seen and heard evidence that the voter turnout across Canada, and most alarmingly among young people, has been declining steadily over the last number of elections, all the time that Elections Canada was advertising why a person should actually get out and exercise their franchise, why they should get out and vote.
My purpose, as I've stated many times when we listened to our intervenors, was that in effect, if the advertising was focused on telling electors where to vote, when to vote, and how to vote, and what kind of identification is required, that would be the salient information that prospective voters need. Survey after survey has indicated that many times the reasons people didn't vote is they didn't have that basic information. The added benefit is that by merely advertising the basics, you are in effect promoting voter turnout because you're constantly telling people there's an election coming up, and here's what they need to know in order to cast their ballot.
We have in this country an excellent system, both within our schools and our political parties, within society as a whole, of engaging Canadians as to the rights and privileges of voting and why it is important to get out and vote. We do not think it is necessary for Elections Canada to continue spending advertising dollars on that focus when, in fact, they should be focusing their efforts on convincing people and telling them the information they need to get out and cast a ballot. That's what this clause does.
So we add:
(1.1) For greater certainty, subsection (1) does not prevent the Chief Electoral Officer from transmitting or causing to be transmitted advertising messages for any other purpose relating to his or her mandate.
We're saying the focus should be on the where, when, and how, but it does not cause any difficulty for the Chief Electoral Officer or his staff in transmitting any other advertising messages relating to his mandate. It opens it up. It does not prevent the Chief Electoral Officer from speaking to the public. This simply talks about advertising campaigns relating to student votes, and what the focus of Elections Canada should be with respect to formal advertising.
There's nothing in this bill that says the Chief Electoral Officer cannot speak to the general public. The minister made that quite clear in his comments, which were quoted extensively by my friends opposite last Friday.
Amendment G-4 clarifies, to the government's satisfaction at least, what the focus of advertising campaigns should be on behalf of Elections Canada. It certainly includes the very important provisions with respect to public education, student votes, and student involvement.