I am Doug Cryer. I am the director of public policy for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.
The EFC is a national organization that has affiliate denominations--40 different denominations--and over 100 different ministry organizations as well as about 40 institutes of higher Christian education.
The EFC encourages active civic engagement and recognizes that we all benefit when Canadian citizens exercise their right and their duty to vote. Providing more voting opportunities might be helpful to increase voter turnout. However, the proposal made in Bill C-16 to set up advance polls on two Sundays before the federal election day will have a significant impact on Christians whose day of worship is Sunday. The question we are asking is, will churches be competing with federal elections on Sundays? Or we could ask why they should intrude on religious observance days at all.
The addition of the advance poll on the Sunday before the election is the most problematic, because rather than it being a typical advance poll with limited voting stations, every polling station will be open just as it would be on an election day. In a recent internal poll that we conducted within the EFC, we asked whether people agreed that there should be an advance poll with all polling stations open on the day before a Monday election. Four hundred and ten people responded out of 1,300, and 84% of them said no, that they were not in favour of this proposal. This response indicates that there could be widespread disapproval of this initiative, and rather than strengthening the voting process, it would run the risk of turning more people away.
Many Christians still count Sundays as their Sabbath day of rest and a day dedicated to family. Some latest statistics, as already mentioned, demonstrated that 32% of Canadians, or 11 million people, attend worship at least monthly. Christians, as an identifiable minority in Canada with already established habits and practices on Sundays, are clearly the most affected by these proposed advanced polls.
The proposed change also means that churches will be in competition with Elections Canada for rental space, a point already made by Mr. McDonald. Churches that host polling stations in their church halls will be affected, unless the polls are moved elsewhere, and in countless growing communities across Canada it is not unusual for a church to rent space in local school gymnasiums or in community halls--the same places where Elections Canada will be vying to rent space for their polling stations. Other activities are often displaced to accommodate polling stations on election days.
Should Christians bear an undue burden in their accommodation of these proposed changes where their regularly established worship arrangements may be disrupted? There are many questions as to how to encourage more people to vote. Ultimately, however, the government should not infringe on the worship practices of a substantial religious community when it is not essential to do so.
I believe you have our three recommendations that we handed out to you regarding this bill.
Thank you.