Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think that's a reasonable inference: that the fact that the weather was bad and that people travel over that period could lead to the increase in advance voting. It doesn't bear on our contention or our finding that of those people who advance-voted, 60% would not have voted otherwise.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Let me put it to you this way, and I hope this clarifies. They're people who we infer through our model would not have voted if advance voting had not been available in this election.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We found no difference in the probability of voting in advance between people who lived in rural and people who lived in urban settings in 2006.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The particular reason why it won't close the gap is because older citizens are more likely to take advantage of increased convenience opportunities. We'd expect that citizens in every age group would take advantage of these convenience opportunities of having an extra day of voting and having an extra day of advance voting at the back end, but we would expect that as citizens get older, they'd be more likely to take advantage of those extra opportunities to vote.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We're not certain what the answer is to your question about the precise impact of Sunday alone.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We should just say, quite quickly, that our finding was that as people get older, through the whole course of their lives, they're more likely to take advantage of opportunities to vote in advance—though, emphatically, that does not mean young people won't do it. It only means they'll take advantage of those opportunities at a lower rate than older folks will, which will increase the gap between the young and the old, while increasing youth participation at the same time.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I shall not disagree with myself from earlier. The one caveat I would make is that the trend is still downwards among young people, those aged 18 to 34, so we ought not to expect this bill to turn around their participation, but to stem the decline, if you will, to make that decline of participation less steep from election to election.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I should like to say as well that it's clear to us from our research that it's not only the case that people who vote on election day vote in advance because it's more convenient and that it's only a movement back and forth of regular voters. Rather, what advanced voting has done in Canada, at least in 2006, was to give people who were at the margin—people who probably found voting inconvenient on the day of voting, who may have worked in retail or had other reasons to not vote—an opportunity to vote.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We addressed two more questions. First, does increased advance voting increase overall turnout? Second, who takes advantage of the opportunity to vote in advance? On the first question, we think the evidence is rather clear. Increased advance voting opportunities give time-pressed individuals more opportunities to vote, and they give parties more opportunities to mobilize voters into these voting opportunities.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I am Peter Loewen, a graduate student at the Université de Montréal in the department of political science and a research associate with the Canada research chair in electoral studies.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I do, and if I may, I would like to share my time with Madam Dobrzynska, because we've jointly prepared a statement. I do thank you very much and I thank the members of this committee very much for the opportunity to come and talk about the report that we drafted for Elections Canada entitled Potential Impacts of Extended Advance Voting on Voter Turnout.