That's the day prior to October 2.
Interestingly, something that was foreseen in the Ontario reforms and that was not addressed in Bill C-76 in the federal legislation was changing the date of the fixed election date. Like the federal fixed election date, the provincial fixed election date was scheduled for the first Thursday in October, which in most cases would be immediately prior to Thanksgiving. Those hours and those dates were changed to the first Thursday in June. I'd be curious to hear from the chief electoral officer on why that change was made. What was it about October that wasn't appropriate? What made it more appropriate to move it to a June date?
Certainly at a federal level in the past there have been dates throughout the calendar year, including one in January 2006. I remember that the door-knocking in that campaign wasn't always the most enjoyable, but with a good toque it worked out. It would be interesting to hear from the CEO on what considerations went into that.
It would also be interesting to hear what considerations were made by the CEO in running an election in October versus June, and June versus October, particularly in terms of locations and having the availability of space. Whether it's early June or early October, schools—public schools, elementary schools, high schools—do have classes on Mondays and Thursdays. In either of those cases, whether it's a federal or provincial election, school is in session, so the availability of schools for those things isn't really affected in either case. I would be curious to hear about that, especially when we look at comments in terms of advance polling. In October with the Thanksgiving weekend, you do run into holidays from a federal perspective but not so much provincially. Again, you have the Victoria Day weekend, which falls a couple of weeks prior to the provincial fixed election date, which has an impact.
I'll go back to the timing and the consideration that has to be made. I can recall that in the 2005-06 election, the Elections Canada offices were open on Christmas Day for those who wanted to vote by special ballot. I think that's an interesting conundrum and an interesting challenge as well that we can foresee in Bill C-76 with the date of a maximum length of a writ period—in the case where a government in a minority situation falls at a certain point—whether it be in late November or into December, and how that overlaps with a holiday period. A Christmas election is a challenge.
Certainly, when Paul Martin called that election in December 2005, it was a significant time lag that allowed the CEO and—