Electoral Reform committee  I think it's paramount that you provide a vehicle. My recommendation to you is that it be Elections Canada. Give them adequate time and adequate resources to provide a fulsome outreach and factual information package to Canadians at all levels, and in all sectors of our great cou

Electoral Reform committee  I would suggest to you that our electoral system is not evolved like the rest of society. Twenty years ago, if I wanted to have a suit, I had to go to a tailor and have it made. Today I can phone a call centre, I can go on the Internet, I can order the suit, and I can get it from

Electoral Reform committee  After every election, we do a large survey of approximately 5,000 to 7,000 Ontarians, and one of the questions we ask of those who did not vote is, why did you not vote? We see probably 35% to 40% who say that simply they're too busy, they have too many other things on the go, an

Electoral Reform committee  I would wholeheartedly agree with anything that parliamentarians do in the public education of our democratic process. Like most electoral agencies across the country, the most difficult demographic group that we try to get out to vote is the 18- to 24-year-olds. Those numbers st

Electoral Reform committee  I would encourage this committee, in its set of recommendations, to mandate that Elections Canada be the provider of factual information, and strictly factual: that they not be asked to comment on the ideological merits of one way or the other. Parliament should either consider

Electoral Reform committee  I have seen several in our country, in B.C., where there was a yes and no referendum campaign that was publicly funded by the government. They put limitations on the money for the yes and no campaigns, so there was equal ability for each side to campaign, to politic, and to adver

Electoral Reform committee  In 2013, I submitted a report to the assembly. We had spent two years looking at online voting, and I reported that I currently don't see that online voting meets the core democratic principles of our current system. It can't ensure secrecy of the vote, one vote per voter, integr

Electoral Reform committee  I think it is important for the other packaging to come from Parliament, and that is direction on the principles that our democracy sits upon and how Parliament would view those. I think it is not possible for a chief electoral officer to determine what the standards are on secre

Electoral Reform committee  I think the challenge for Elections Canada, as Mr. Mayrand indicated in his testimony, is the uncertainty around what system is going to be in place. Based on understanding the mandate of this committee, that you look at a variety of alternatives, I would say that many of those a

Electoral Reform committee  I would concur with my earlier comments. I think it is paramount that there be legitimacy in the process up front.

Electoral Reform committee  The citizens' assembly was mandated through the Ontario Legislature, and Elections Ontario was mandated to choose the citizens. There was equal representation. There was one citizen selected for each of the 103 ridings. There were 52 females and 51 males, with backups so there wa

Electoral Reform committee  You are correct. As chief electoral officer of Elections Ontario, I do have the ability to compel testimony, to compel documentation, to compel the production of any information that I deem necessary in an investigation. As a chief electoral officer, I would suggest that all my

Electoral Reform committee  The actual question that was asked was a two-part question: whether or not the electorate should elect members of the provincial legislature either using our current system, or the alternative electoral system proposed by the citizens' assembly, which was a mixed member proportio

Electoral Reform committee  I was not the chief electoral officer at the time, but in reviewing all the documentation, Elections Ontario was mandated to do public education. I think for any type of system to reform itself there needs to be great interest and engagement from the political sector. In Ontario,

Electoral Reform committee  I would suggest strongly, should this committee decide to alter the voting system in Canada, that it mandate Elections Canada specifically to be the provider of factual information on what the new system is. It would afford them enough time and resources to do an extensive outrea