I'm up in the air about the expat vote... as an expat, I've let my registration lapse... From a personal point of view, I've thought that I'm not following closely enough to make an informed judgement as to who I vote for... on the other hand, given our compulsory voting system, I still think I would make a more informed choice than most of the population anyway.
It is a flaw of our current system (compulsory... and otherwise) in that it presumes an informed and educated population... something that is definitely demonstrably not the case and a bad (but well meaning...) assumption. Sortition would for me be a better solution (at least for one house of parliament...), otherwise we have people voting for whoever will serve their best short term interests (bribes... otherwise known as tax cuts usually work well...).
It's definitely a heavy topic. Voting is complicated enough nevermind issues with residency, or worse political parties.
I sort of like the Australian system where voting is compulsory.
Voter reform was on the menu in Canada, but since only two parties ever have a shot at winning, neither of them are interested in changing it to PR. There was some talk about reforming the senate to be based on PR, but then you will end up with regionalism which would be nice for the people in the urban areas who tend to support.
I follow Canadian politics quite closely even as a non-resident, especially at the federal level.
One issue for me has always been with immigration. I really like the points system, it just seems to be the fairest thing. Points can also be altered.
You are right to say most voters are not informed. People do tend to vote for whoever will lower their tax or populists. People vote in their self interest and that is really easy to manipulate. I think the key is to try and find someone you support who is going to follow that old adage of 'do what is best for the country'. It's very difficult to find politicians who think like that.