Electoral Reform committee  I know you do, but voting is not the only way you can do that.

Electoral Reform committee  Right. On the point about diverse representation in legislatures, I am all in favour of a more socially representative background for members. A critical mass of people from a certain background makes a difference in terms of the legislative output and so on. Now, it matters mo

Electoral Reform committee  I agree, it all depends. However, there are other ways of doing it, a royal commission on electoral reform. Give the parties an incentive, or a rule even, to offer more balanced representative rosters of candidates in elections. There are a number of ways you can go at it. I'm

Electoral Reform committee  As you can tell, I'm something of an institutional conservative. I'm not big into radical experiments with institutional and constitutional arrangements that have served the country fairly well. I would say that our system concentrates authority and power, and that way people tak

Electoral Reform committee  Yes. Generally, I think some of the problems are not caused by the design of the system. Dare I say they're caused in part by political behaviour?

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, absolutely.

Electoral Reform committee  I haven't read that report. I've only read the press release. The turnout issue is more complicated in terms of the reasons why people fail to vote. The largest category of reasons are the everyday things in your life, like “I forgot”, “I'm too busy”—

Electoral Reform committee  Different polls have told us different things. Elections Manitoba.... The last poll done by Probe told a different set of reasons in terms of what was the top priority. I'll just say this to conclude, Mr. Cullen, on this point. The simplest, least expensive way to bring turnout

Electoral Reform committee  You obviously would have two categories of members of Parliament. In conversations with members of the House of Representatives in New Zealand, we heard that those MPs who do not have constituency obligations play a different role. For some people, if you're into policy developme

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you very much for allowing me to present my perspective on this important topic. Let me also thank the members of the committee. I know that some summer plans were changed, and now you have an arduous trip across the country. I appreciate the work you're doing on behalf of

Electoral Reform committee  So those are two topics I'd be happy to answer questions on. For today's opening remarks, I thought I'd stick very strictly to a text I've titled “Ten Quick Thoughts on Electoral Reform in Ten Minutes”. I didn't add that they were not particularly original thoughts, but you may

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As one of the other witnesses already indicated, it's not so much producing an identity card, including a picture card, perhaps; it's often demonstrating your address that becomes a stumbling block for a legitimate voter to be able to cast a vote. Again, I—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, academics tend to comment on both the motivation to vote and the propensity to vote. Some groups are not as likely to turn out. If you arrive at a voting station and someone says to you that you have two forms of identification but that neither of them contains an address a

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, Mr. Lamoureux, I'll take you back to 2004 when the Chrétien Liberal government of the day abolished contributions, or put a ban on contributions from trade unions, corporations, and other associations to political parties. That change came out of the Lortie Royal Commission

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Until recently in the U.K. you registered to vote on a household basis. There was an enumeration, and someone in the house could actually indicate that there were persons present who were eligible to vote and so on. Now they are going to individual registration. They are making c