Here’s hoping that Wednesday’s “Speech from the Throne” won’t feature the return of a Harper government bill that has been twice opposed by the EFC and by the broader Christian community.
The Expanded Voting Opportunities Act has twice appeared in the House of Commons as a government bill and twice died with prorogation. Let’s hope it stays that way.
The legislation proposes amending the Canada Elections Act to add full scale, no holds barred, all polls open Sunday voting on the day immediately preceding Election Day, currently a Monday in Canada.
It’s true that it used to be easier to decide what to do on a Sunday. Christians went to church and everyone else had the day off. These convictions are no longer a reality in the majority of the nation’s retail sector, but they are still a reality for nearly all Christian worship services.
In an effort to address falling voter turnout, the Canadian Government has landed on a proposal to increase the number of advance polling days. The proposal is to add two Sundays of voting to the agenda.
The first Sunday would be added to the existing Friday, Saturday and Monday a week before election day when a limited number of polling stations are open in each district from noon until 8 p.m. In a pluralist society, where a broad accommodation of religious interests is sought, this seems a reasonable and accommodating proposal. Intentional or not, this would spread the opportunity to attend advance polls over significant days of worship for several religious communities – Muslims on Friday, Jews and Seventh Day Adventists on Saturday, and most Christians on Sunday.
The second Sunday, however, is the day immediately preceding Election Day and is proposed to be a mirror image to Election Monday’s full polling day, with all polling stations open. The only difference from Election Day is that the polls would be open from noon to 8 p.m. instead of the full 12 hours of the following day. Essentially, this could be the first step toward replacing Monday elections in Canada with Sunday elections.
We have Sunday shopping, so one might ask, “What’s wrong with Sunday voting?”
For one thing, Statistics Canada reports that approximately 1/3 of Canadians, over 11 million people, regularly attend church on Sundays. In order to open every polling station in the country, Elections Canada will be competing directly with churches for space. In communities where church space is used for polling or where space in schools and community centres that is normally used by churches on a Sunday will be required for polling, Christian churches will pay the price.
In 2007, Chief Electoral Office Marc Mayrand testified before a parliamentary committee that 11% of the facilities used for polling during a federal election in Canada are church buildings or other places of worship.
Along with many others, The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada encourages voting as a part of active civic engagement. No one denies the importance of voting to the democratic system of government. And, Canadians have become accustomed to hearing how voting continues for days, weeks or months in some nations – usually, those nations that lack the electoral and communications infrastructure that is present in Canada (the USA, with 10x the population, manages to do it in one day). People who are determined to vote on a Sunday can, however, already do so by means of the mail in ballot available to any Canadian who so chooses.
Additionally, if one were to set aside the issue of religious infringement, one has to question whether essentially doubling the cost of Canada’s federal elections – for rental space and the salaries of those operating the polling stations – is justifiable in the pursuit of percentage points.
Ultimately, however, in Canada’s pluralist society no government should initiate or engage in the infringement of the worship practices of a significant number of Canadians when it is not essential to do so.