Thank you for that.
I didn't prepare specific comments on how it would affect military electors, but I know that, in this current moment in time, there are already procedures in place that allow military electors to vote in their home ridings. For example, colleagues have said that when they were deployed, wherever they were, the military worked closely with Elections Canada to ensure that procedures were put in place to allow these electors to effectively cast a ballot.
What I'm most excited about regarding the new bill is the expansion of these sorts of additional supports to regular undergraduate and graduate students at any Canadian university. The supports that already exist for our military electors would be a benefit to any student at any post-secondary institution with an on-campus voting office, guiding them through the special ballot process. It's almost counterintuitive that the first time a lot of people vote is potentially using one of the most difficult ways to go about casting a ballot. I often say that, for someone like me, who lives at a stable address and gets a “you vote at” card, it's quite easy to go to a polling station down the street and show my driver's licence with my address on it and cast a ballot. The reality is that post-secondary students—many of whom are voting for the first time—might not have the correct address on their driver's licence. They might have to go through a more complicated process to vote in their home riding.
Therefore, having additional supports available and people walking them through the process is absolutely crucial, especially because we know voting is habit-forming. If they have a positive experience when they're in that educational institution, it's going to set them up for future voting.