Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I always appreciate hearing from Canadians, particularly those who think we shouldn't have politicians making laws. They think that the people making laws should be people other than those who are actually elected and accountable to the electorate. I fail to see the logic, to be quite frank with you, given the fact—as my colleague Mr. Jackson said—that even when the Liberals had a majority from 2015 to 2019 and they proposed electoral reform, the Canadian public, through their elected representatives, decided whether or not that was going to be palatable. That's how we actually go through the sausage-making effort of making laws and regulations, including laws regarding our elections, being at this particular committee. Anybody with a basic understanding of a civics class would know that.
I am going to ask my first question of Mr. Loewen.
Mr. Loewen, in 2017, an Alberta court decision ruled that a provision in our electoral laws requiring a $1,000 deposit was a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
First of all, I think you would agree that elections are serious business. I don't think there is a more serious thing that a Canadian can do than cast their ballot in the democratic process. We're approaching Veterans' Week and Remembrance Day. Over 120,000 Canadians have paid with their lives in order to make sure that we can all do this. This is about as serious a business as it gets.
I always interpreted that $1,000 requirement as something put in place to make sure that unserious people weren't able to just get their name on the ballot. Do you think the government made a mistake by not challenging, or not trying to challenge, that decision made by an Alberta court in 2017?