I would agree with that, and I think that's what's really important.
At this point, I think we are in the middle of a process whereby Mr. Johnston will make some recommendations about how to deal with this issue. They could include a public inquiry or not. I would be really sad if he didn't make a recommendation for a public inquiry that is broad and not just about foreign interference. I don't think it's the right place to deal with foreign interference issues as a kind of fact-finding mission, because you can't say everything in public. I think it's more important to have a much broader conversation at this point about the health of democracy as measured by a number of indicators.
For me, to try to be quick in answering your question, if we thought about things like whether we should bring back the per-vote subsidy for political parties so that they have stable funding they can count on year over year, would that bring some kind of stability? Are we seeing some inflamed rhetoric because parties are very heavily dependent on private donations, for example? Maybe some of that would have the tone-down effect you talked about.
Would it be a good idea to lower the voting age to 16 and recognize that 16-year-olds are actually quite capable of making these sorts of decisions and having conversations about things that affect all of us, and that this type of inclusion in conversation, matched with robust civics classes across the country, would maybe then change the dialogue? I think we're more responsible when we have conversations with teenagers and younger people. We're not as nasty—I hope we're not—so sometimes that can have a really good effect.
I think we need to be talking about things like how to recruit and retain people in public office, and how to make it less of a miserable experience for a lot of people. I think we have to talk about how we can build our own civic self-defence so that we can tell the difference between truth and lies, no matter who is throwing them out there.
When you build those things, you don't necessarily have to say things like, “We are going to censor divisive rhetoric.” We can't do that. We have to make other things different so that they become much less marketable and much less common.