Thank you.
Thank you to our witnesses for coming here.
I have two things I want to do. One is to make a comment of what I would consider a gentle disagreement, in particular with what Mr. McDonald and Mr. Cryer said, and then to turn to a specific question.
It seems to me that there is a fundamental distinction between voting and work for a Christian. If you are an Orthodox Jew the definition of work and what you ought not to do on Shabbat is quite specific. On the Sabbath you can't, for example, use a writing instrument and mark a ballot, but that's not true in the same way for a Christian.
On drawing on my own experience, I remember talking at one point with the former Swiss ambassador to Canada, and he was describing to me his experience as a child growing up in Switzerland. Of course they have elections and referendums on a very frequent basis, several times a year, and he told me, Sunday was the day we went to church and then went to vote. At least in their culture—and he came from a Protestant canton in northern Switzerland—they didn't perceive these as being a work activity, an intrusion on the Sabbath. I just mentioned that to say that there are other countries where they've managed to find a balance.
The question I had is of a very specific nature, and it relates to the small and usually starting congregations, often very lively congregations. I've been to many of them that have met in places like a meeting room in a hotel, and school gymnasiums and auditoriums are popular. I've never really thought until now about the arrangements they as lessees make with the lessors, and I understand the fear of losing that particular space on a particular Sunday, but I'm inclined to think that they would be making a multi-Sunday agreement. They wouldn't walk in each time not knowing what they'll be doing one, two, three, or perhaps even ten or twenty Sundays in advance. It would just be a logical thing to work that out with the institution that's renting to them.
Am I wrong in that assumption? I'm assuming that Elections Canada would simply find those facilities unavailable, and in fact the relevant congregation would in fact have locked up that particular room. But I stand to be corrected.