Mr. Speaker, my colleague from St. John's West understands the sense of the amended motion. It is understanding that is lacking. It is a lack of appreciation for how it would directly affect the lives of those young people and their families.
I imagined a family going to vote and the children would vote at the polling place. It would be a mock vote. That experience would stick in their memories. When those young people became of voting age they would have those memories. My understanding is that legally it would be very difficult to have a mock vote in a polling station environment. That is why I am looking forward to the changed amendment put forward by my colleague's party.
My colleague is absolutely right with regard to elementary schools. At the moment in Ontario there is a terrific civics course in grade 5. The kids get very excited. They get involved in mock elections and so on. As I said in my remarks, it is critical that the experience be repeated fairly high in the secondary system so it will stick with young people. We all know that one of the reasons they do not vote is not because of a lack of interest, but because they are away from home and they are adjusting to a new environment at the time of an election.
I stress that the federal government must show leadership by doing things which it is legally entitled to do and which Elections Canada is supposed to do. We, as members of Parliament, through our standing committee can monitor what Elections Canada is doing and also provide materials which could be of use in a municipal election. At least there could be a model for that kind of thing.