Mr. Speaker, I thought it might be good to follow up on the point about ganging up to try to swing ridings somehow or other. The number of citizens abroad who actually vote suggests that is unlikely to ever be effective, if it ever occurred. Elections Canada will confirm in testimony that it has never seen any organized effort, ever, to try to channel votes to particular ridings using the flexibility that currently exists in the Canada Elections Act to vote where one has a specific number of relatives. It is a fictional concern. The member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor put it well to say it is a solution in search of a problem.
Could the member tell me what the big problem is with the current flexibility? If individuals are away from Canada, what says that the last place they happened to live is their most meaningful link to a country? Why would there be this geographic fixation? If students live abroad, is it not just as meaningful to say that where their parents currently live is a valid place for them to exercise their valid right to vote as a citizen?
We are not going to go to the wall to say that the current flexibility of the list should stay, but the fact of the matter is that it is not as if it were an abuse problem either.
I wonder if my colleague could comment.