Bill C-19 amends the Elections Act to allow the Chief Electoral Officer to extend time for doing any act to ensure the health and safety of electors or election officers pursuant to proposed subsection 17(1) of the bill.
This amendment proposes to disallow the Chief Electoral Officer from doing so in relation to voting hours or voting days at an advance polling station, or in relation to the voting hours during the polling period. As the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states on page 770, “An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.” This would be deemed to be beyond the principle of the bill.