Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank you for your highly interesting presentations. I admit that I was at first surprised to see that churches were slated to participate in this consultative process. I find your contribution very enriching as far as information gathering is concerned.
The bill under consideration creates a new form of advanced polling. As several of you have mentioned, conventional advanced polling includes polling stations that can be set up more or less anywhere, but there would be no obligation to find a large number of polling stations. I think that at the last meeting, there was mention of 60,000 polling stations. If an additional conventional advanced polling day would be added, the problem would not be as bad as you have made out, because there would perhaps be no need for polling stations in places of worship.
Moreover, you have raised the issue of Sunday worship which may be disrupted, regardless of where the polling stations are located, simply because people would be encouraged to vote on a Sunday.
I would like to come back to the location issue. Could you instruct the people in charge of administering your places of worship to refuse to rent space to Elections Canada, whether be a church, a temple, or a mosque? When Elections Canada asks you to rent out space, as churches, could you instruct your administrators, for want of a better word, to refuse to rent out your premises, or does the law compel you to do so?
Could the various churches you represent refuse to rent out their premises on the Sunday prior to an election because doing so would otherwise cause too much inconvenience?