Thank you, Chair.
This is a fascinating discussion. I can't speak for all the committee members here, but I am somebody who has voted by special ballot because, in the Canadian Armed Forces, it is actually set up fairly well. I've had the privilege of voting, I think, in Bosnia and in Afghanistan, and our votes got back here—at least I assume they got back. To speak to that process, I know that every member of the CAF is registered for their home riding. They can change that if they get posted, but there's a deliberate process, so there's a record.
Where I'm going with this—and I want to go back and build on some of the other questions—is it all comes down to trust in the voters and in our democracy. Interestingly enough, I just pulled up the latest results from the last election in my own riding, and, according to the Elections Canada list that was provided, to their own results, there were only 224 voters listed as “special ballot” or “outside of Canada”; however, 536 voted. There were only 224 on the list, but when I look at the latest data that we all get as members of Parliament—we can pull from Elections Canada—there are only 164 still on that list. When you have this vast number, it raises some fascinating conversations and, I think, analysis or research that should be dug into. If you're saying that Canadian voters abroad aren't voting in mass numbers, yet, in my own riding, twice as many people are voting than are actually on the list, it gets to this question of, what are candidates...? Part of our whole democratic process here in Canada is our ability to make our case as to why we, the candidates who are running for the respective ridings, should be the best representative.
Any commentary—from either you, Dr. Turnbull, or you, Professor—would be just great...about the interesting challenges here about maintaining trust but, at the same time, ensuring that information flows both ways so that voters can make informed decisions on how they vote and so that political parties and candidates know how they can actually engage in the process.