Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was very interested in some of Professor Pelletier's remarks, and I don't agree with some of them. As I go through, I'll try to explain that. I did produce a written document, which I believe is being translated and passed on to you.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think you're splitting hairs there. To my mind, it doesn't make much difference if you.... The recommendation is to increase the advance polling days, and that one comes from the studies from the work of Elections Canada and it seems to me to have a pretty thorough basis. As I say, I support that, with the question that I raised about the Sunday before polling day.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I want to make one comment about Sunday. You're thinking of just one religion. If you're thinking broad range about religions, you have to think of Saturday and Friday as well as voting days and how that would affect religions. There might well be others that I'm not aware of in there.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll just make a short first comment. I think we know enough that we don't need to do more studies. I think you've been given very good evidence of what the consequences of this are, and I don't think you need to go much further. The second one is that the factors that affect the vote in Nunavut, in particular, are linguistic and cultural, I think, even more than remoteness, because a majority of the population there does not speak either official language, at least not with any comfort.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll jump in. My guess is that it's less important than the others. There is a whole other set of issues that come in on it. What about people who work on Sunday? Are they going to have the right to have two hours off during the day to vote, and so on? Are we making it a real voting day or a pretend voting day?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Let me offer you a different thought on this. If I were to express the concerns that lead to non-participation among the students I've dealt with—who are a very, very elite group in Canada—I would say that the environment is one concern, and that they don't see the government doing what they think should happen.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think you should make a distinction, that getting more seniors to vote is better than getting more youth to vote. Every citizen is equal, and I think that what you have to do is just get—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I haven't done as intensive studies as the others have, but I'll make two points. One, yes, I believe it will increase voting. I myself have taken advantage of advance polls from time to time; I'm very grateful they're there, and with more opportunities, I'm sure more people will.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll just be very brief. I consider it worthwhile to spend that money. I would not be the one to tell 200,000 Canadians who take voting seriously enough to go to an advance poll that we don't consider their votes worth $150. The marginal cost of something like this is always higher than the average.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I could have gotten here earlier, but I went to see a former student of mine, Peter Milliken, and had a coffee with him before coming, so my excuses and apology for being late. I have some comments and I'll simply read them. I hope you have them in French, too; I'm not sure.

Public Accounts committee  I am recommending that, with the proviso you made in the protocol, that it's a work in progress. And once you've adopted it, if the Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board want to talk to the committee, they should, and you would welcome hearing from them. I wanted to say earlier that the reason offered by the Treasury Board for not discussing it with me was that they required political direction from the minister before they could respond.

Public Accounts committee  My answer to the first question is no. I've run this past several lawyers, political scientists, and various officials in Ottawa. Nobody has suggested it's contrary to the provisions of the Federal Accountability Act or any other act. What was your second question?

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, sir. The first answer is that as I emphasized in the protocol and in my remarks today--and as the Privy Council Office does, this being one of those things we agree on--the accounting officer provisions of the Financial Administration Act give no new powers to deputy ministers.

Public Accounts committee  No, there are two powers. First there's the power to call for persons and papers. Then there is the power to investigate, to examine. Then there is the power to report. But committees do not have the power to direct or discipline ministers or officials. In fact, that power is so rarely used by Parliament itself that it almost doesn't exist there.

Public Accounts committee  I believe the Privy Council Office feels entitled to direct Parliament, tell Parliament what it should and shouldn't do, in a way that it does not feel Parliament should tell the Privy Council Office what it should and shouldn't do. Forgive me, sir, I will use an analogy. As I read that document, that's what the lawyers call “construing” something.