Mr. Speaker, with this bill the government is proposing that the 2025 elections be held a week later than the date that had been set.
The government claims that this is on account of a religious holiday, Diwali, a festival held by the Hindu religious group. Apparently there are other groups that celebrate it as well, namely the Sikhs and Buddhists.
I quickly logged on to the Statistics Canada site to ascertain the proportion of religious groups present in Canada. The site counts over 21 religious groups. I noted that 2.3% of Canada's population is Hindu, 2.1% Sikh and 1% Buddhist.
What this government is proposing to do, then, is to push back the elections to allow less than 4.5% of the Canadian population to celebrate their religious holiday. I would remind members that in Canada, over 34.6% of the population do not practise any religion and 29.9% are Catholic, so I find this a little curious. I have to ask myself whether it is not irresponsible, or even dangerous, to start changing such an important date as the federal election date on account of a religious holiday.
I was speaking about the 21 religious groups identified. There are probably a number of religious holidays for these groups, perhaps more than 365, so if we try to be fair, we might end up never finding a day during the year to hold the federal elections.
I wonder whether it is not irresponsible on the government's part to invoke this reason for postponing the elections.