Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the member as he talked about commending one group after another. I commend the member for bringing forward such a motion which we solidly support. I think it is a tremendous idea.
I believe that in the last election only 25% of our population under 30 voted. Some of that is disinterest in politics generally; however, I believe a lot of it is many of our young people really do not understand the system. It is not something that is taught, unfortunately, in many schools.
That is basically my question for the member. How can we at this level draw attention to the deficit that is out there? How can we get young people involved? They are the people who really should be interested because it is their future that we deal with in this great establishment.
Besides creating the awareness here and hopefully, with cooperation, at the provincial level also, we must create the mechanism to get people involved. Perhaps if federal and provincial elections were to coincide, good habits would be formed. It is crucial that good habits be formed.
Sometimes during the elections, mini elections are held but they are usually held in kindergarten classes and the lower grades. The kids get caught up in it.
If we gave students in the whole system the chance to vote when issues were being discussed, we might not only get students interested, but we might get the teachers more interested. Students would come out of our schools understanding our parliamentary system, which many of them do not understand now.
Does the member think we should push it at this end to encourage the educational system to concentrate more on teaching our young people about the importance of democracy and the importance of the great parliamentary system we have? Then they could participate in making the decisions which will affect their future.