Religious reasons, among others, are cited for not voting on weekends. I'm not an expert on religions, but I imagine that for some people Saturday is the holiday, while for others it's Sunday. It may even be two days, or even three days for some religions. I don't know, there are many religions.
Let's say I'm from a religion that prohibits me from voting on the weekend. There is always advance voting and postal voting. We're expanding the process a lot. We certainly don't want to harm people who are in that situation or exclude them from democracy, but they still have the option of voting at advance polls or by mail.
I have nothing at all against people with religious beliefs, but there are many other ways in which these people can exercise their right to vote safely, closer to home. As Mr. Roussel told us so emphatically, it is difficult to hold three voting days. So I don't understand why we are obsessed with these three days, when all the people on the ground who have been running elections for decades tell us that it can't happen easily.
Can we be reasonable, put partisanship aside, and listen to the Chief Electoral Officer, whose profession this is?
I personally would have preferred it to be one day, but given everything we hear, I think two days is a good compromise. I'm willing to make that compromise, because there are members of the committee who want to give people more chances to vote in person, which is very virtuous. I accept that. We will vote closer to home and we will have more and bigger premises. We will be able to vote in schools and there will be more time slots and workers. In the context of a pandemic, I find it hard to imagine that this would not be ideal.