A federal election is a very large undertaking, and you can't easily pivot on a dime. You referred to the strike. We had issued voter information cards all across Ontario when the strike emerged, and we came very close to having to reissue three million VICs in the Toronto area. I was personally calling all the schools and school boards to make sure we had the.... It's very hard to pivot.
There is provision in the legislation for cancelling an election, which is the last thing we want to do. In Manitoba we had to consider that. The question is whether or not we can offer voting services to Canadians in a particular electoral district. We go out of our way and we adapt the rules, which I can do under legislation, to adjust the service offering.
Right now we have two tasks. One is beginning to look at how we could better adjust to weather incidents. I think what we did in this election—for a range of reasons, not just weather incidents—was to use special ballot kiosks for the Jewish communities but also in Manitoba for the line workers and the emergency workers. We used special ballots to create kiosks where they could vote out of riding.
We'll need to explore how we can better prepare for that. One of the challenges is the workforce. In Manitoba we had to fly our headquarters staff into Manitoba because there was nobody left on the ground to work at those polls. We were literally pulling people from the floors in Gatineau and putting them on flights to Manitoba, so there's a limit to what we can do.
In terms of the virus, we are in contact with health authorities. I know that next week, for example, in France they're having municipal elections. They've decided to go forward. They will provide some hand sanitizer and they're asking their voters to bring their own pencils and pens to vote, so we'll examine how that works.
One of the questions I have is—and I don't have the answer yet—does it make sense for Elections Canada to procure a whole lot of hand sanitizer at a time when it could be better used in hospitals or other places in the country? Is it for me to stockpile masks or hand sanitizer, or should it not be for the government? We have to have those discussions and decide what the best way forward is.