Procedure and House Affairs committee  I have just one comment about the irritant of having candidates outside of a church building. The EFC publishes an election readiness kit that stipulates that the only activities that are permitted in a church legally, or from Revenue Canada's point of view, is an all-candidates

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Advance polls are, in my opinion, the solution to this. The more advance polls, the more opportunities to vote, the better. They don't have to be the full-blown advance polls. You could have limited advance polling. That limits the volunteers and it makes more opportunities avail

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. I can just agree with you that any time something like this happens, some people have a choice and others haven't. In the case of people who are forced to live on minimum wage and are forced to work on Sundays, we have the choice to visit those stores and visit those minimum

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I've volunteered to teach at my children's civics class when they raise political issues. I think that's a great opportunity for members of Parliament to visit all their high schools and help promote.... The students are more likely to vote for people with whom they have some kin

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll give you the observation of David Macfarlane, who spoke to me personally. He's our national initiatives coordinator. He meets with pastors from every evangelical denomination possible all across Canada. It might be too strong a word, but he said that this would be seen as an

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If the intent is to increase voter turnout, you don't want to cause an irritation to the group, or at least one group, that you're trying to get out. I'd certainly like us to consider advance polling on other days, even the full week before elections. If we're not overly concerne

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada regularly publishes an election kit for churches to make sure they're all aware that churches are places for non-partisan activity and that no signage or promotion of particular political parties should happen in the church building.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I believe most religious communities would want to be active participants in community life and in civic engagement. So we can ask that question, why rent in religious facilities, but that's not at the heart or the intent of religious communities. As I think I pointed out just i

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Anybody can say no, but people want to participate in community activity and there's a proud heritage of doing that. So to take something away that churches and communities have come behind in the past is unfortunate. So they can say no, but they would rather say yes and have i

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I actually checked it out with Elections Canada. It's up to the returning officer in each riding to determine the polling locations in that riding, and it's done on a negotiated basis. I can tell you anecdotally that any regularly scheduled activity is often pre-empted by a poll

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We have freedom of choice right now without this legislation, so we'll have freedom of choice if this bill is passed. But it is more than that; it's intrusion into regularly scheduled activities that is also of concern. Right now we have freedom of choice to go shopping on Sunday

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It gets to the heart of the issue we're concerned about, that there are already activities happening on Sundays that are recognized nationally in Canada, and that this is a day of worship for Christians. For Christians to accommodate a new activity on their day is a major accommo

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I can answer the question indirectly by the poll that I just mentioned to you that we conducted on our members. It had 84% of them disagreeing to having the advance polls open on Sundays. We're a federal organization and so we monitor more closely the federal activities, which i

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I am Doug Cryer. I am the director of public policy for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. The EFC is a national organization that has affiliate denominations--40 different denominations--and over 100 different ministry organizations as well as about 40 institutes of higher C