Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm pleased to appear before the committee today to discuss Bill C-16, the purpose of which is to add two advance polling days to the election calendar.
This bill provides greater flexibility for us to serve electors by giving them more opportunities to exercise their right to vote. In so doing, it facilitates participation and access to the electoral process. Access is, in fact, one of the strategic objectives Elections Canada set itself in the five-year strategy plan that we recently developed.
However, the bill presents a number of operational challenges, which touch on three elements: the fact of having two consecutive polling days in some 64,000 polling stations: differences in rules applicable for the day before election day and for election day itself: and, lastly, the proposed timeframe for implementation.
These challenges are in addition to a series of changes to the electoral process that include Bill C-31, passed last spring, and upcoming changes addressed in different bills recently introduced in Parliament. The adjustments resulting from the successive changes present challenges for electors, political entities and election officials that must be taken into account.
With regard to the first challenge, the bill provides for one last advance voting day the day before polling day. Day 1 in our jargon, and that is how I will refer to it this morning. Day 1 polling would be held in all of the approximately 64,000 polling stations used on polling day. This creates several operational issues for Elections Canada. I would like to focus on four in particular.
The first operational issue is recruiting and retaining election officers; indeed, this was already a major challenge even before the introduction of Bill C-16, owing partly to the fact that returning officers must wait for political parties to supply the names up to the 17th day prior to election day to hire deputy returning officers and clerks. And on that day, the political parties have usually supplied less than half of the names needed to fill openings. This means that, 17 days before polling day, most of the recruiting has yet to be done, and we need to be ready for the advance voting days, which start one week later. Furthermore, it is sometimes necessary to train up to 800 people in order to fill the 500 to 600 positions in each electoral district.
The second operational issue relates to polling stations and opening hours. Polling stations will be open from noon to 8:00 p.m. in all regions of the country, which effectively means a 10-hour working day, if one includes preparation time prior to opening the polling stations and procedures required following the close of the polling stations. However, in British Columbia, Alberta and the Yukon, polling stations must open again at 7:00 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. the next day for approximately a 14-hour work day, for a total of 24 hours' work over two days. Not only is this a great deal to ask of election workers, but also a short rest period increases the risk that workers who are not rested and ready for election day will fail to report for work on that day.