Electoral Reform committee  I think that if you know enough, it almost becomes self-mandatory. That is, if you fill those information gaps, if you deal with the knowledge levels...because we know that people with higher levels of education are voting more often. I guess I may be agnostic about mandatory vot

Electoral Reform committee  I think maybe what the professor was getting at was that it can be difficult to evaluate institutions if you don't have the information to evaluate them. Maybe for Canadians who aren't following along, or who are and are feeling confused about picking between electoral systems, i

Electoral Reform committee  The exact number.... This is from the Elections B.C. annual report from 2012-13. The budget line was voter education, and they spent $15,643, and their entire budget was $18.3 million.

Electoral Reform committee  Well, I think the point is more—

Electoral Reform committee  The point is more that Elections Canada can play.... I don't know what the budget figure would be, but it's just like civics education in the schools, which I know is a provincial responsibility, but it's a real mishmash out there. If the CEO can be a champion, if Elections Can

Electoral Reform committee  I think, especially with the evidence we have, that a citizens' assembly for the people involved in that citizens' assembly would be a good experience. They would be engaged and informed about whatever electoral system they decided to put forward. I would still be concerned about

Electoral Reform committee  I think it's easy even for all of us who are engaged in political culture to fall into the horse race side of things. You might follow politics very closely, but you aren't as much concerned with the institutions or how policies are made and how it's functioning. Even following

Electoral Reform committee  I'd imagine it could be difficult. We can encourage the media, but I think that's why we have these institutions like a non-partisan electoral agency, which we've had since 1993. I can provide these papers to the committee. There's been a real growth in NGOs working on civics.

Electoral Reform committee  I can't think of any research off the top of my head that speaks to the misinformation, but I can speak to research I've seen presented about the success of citizens' assemblies, where you'd have the most heightened information and awareness. I'm sure most of the committee is fam

Electoral Reform committee  I think the amendments that we were made to Bill C-23 gave it some clarity, but there is still some ambiguity around what the role of the Chief Electoral Officer should be, so you could strengthen language in that way. The research was showing that it wasn't just Elections Canada

Electoral Reform committee  Yes. Universities and electoral agencies are getting much better. They have satellite polling booths on campuses, but it's still a barrier. Even though I think the international research is somewhat mixed out there, I think the socialization argument that Milner's made before is

Electoral Reform committee  The most exposure I have to that age group is university students. We normally assume that those who are more educated are going to vote more. But even at that point they're at a stage in their life where maybe making that step into a political act is complicated by everything el

Electoral Reform committee  Yes. Being around people that age, I hear much less about how they all vote the same way in their family and more about one uncle they can't even talk to about politics. I think there is divergence there.

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you for the question. I've definitely thought about that and I think I'd support—I believe Henry Milner has made this argument before; he's written a lot about it—the socialization aspect to it. If you're at home and you were in Ontario to take that grade 10 civics course

Electoral Reform committee  Especially when we focus on the role of education policy and look closer—obviously it's a constitutional responsibility for the provinces—we see it's a really mixed bag across the country. I did research on Ontario, for example, when it instituted a mandatory civics course. The a