Thanks, Mr. Chair. In closing on this amendment, I just want to respond to Mr. Hawkins’ comments. When we discussed this in committee, we talked about driving people to the polling stations, which is why we went with the word “in” as opposed to “at.” I don’t see this amendment limiting the ability of anybody taking anybody to the polling station. It does limit them from going in. I don’t believe any candidate has any business being inside a polling station other than to vote and if we leave this motion as is, we could go there for brief visits, which strikes me as a little on the insane side. I do believe this causes an unfair advantage to us, those of us who are here that choose to run again, given that we are more highly visible and recognizable to most other candidates and I think it would be inappropriate for us to be “in” the polling station, which is why we have gone with the word “in” and we have deleted “for brief visits.” Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to support the amendment as well. I don’t want to create any hardship for people in smaller communities perhaps where they don’t have a larger group of people helping them on election day or driving people to the polls or acting as scrutineers for them and those sorts of things. But by virtue of the fact that you cannot campaign on election day, to me to have the candidate in the poll where people are voting runs contrary to the principle of not campaigning on election day because, as Mr. Abernethy said, if you are the incumbent and you are highly visible and you are a high profile candidate, being the poll, what’s bigger, the candidate themselves standing there or…There is no sign allowed, there is no button allowed, but the candidate themselves can there. You know, how are you going to define brief visits? So I am going to support the motion for the amendment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the amendment.

Question has been called.

---Carried

The amendment to the motion is carried. I would like to now move back to the committee motion as amended, 24-16(3), which I believe has been distributed. To the motion as amended. Ms. Lee.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t know if anybody can answer this question, but I don’t know what “restrict” means. “Restrict the attendance of a candidate in a polling station.” There is a definition question there. Does that mean that…

Except to vote, okay. Okay. So you can only go there to vote, otherwise you’re not allowed to be there in a polling station, but you could be outside. I just want to say that these are really, really important principles. I think we have already said that, so I will be voting in favour of that. I just wanted to be clear about what that means.

Thank you. To the motion as amended.

Question has been called.

---Carried

The motion as amended is carried and we will move on. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee recommends that the Elections and Plebiscite Act be amended to permit the Chief Electoral Officer to vote. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The motion is in order. To the motion.

Question is being called.

---Carried

Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee recommends that the Elections and Plebiscite Act be amended to remove the requirement for written record in the polling book for electors who decline a ballot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make a brief comment that this seems a little strange, but at the moment any voter who declines a ballot who wants it recorded that they, sorry, who wants their name struck from the record, they can show up at the polling station but the election people have to record that Josephine Smith declined the ballot. So this is simply going to remove any specific name from the action. It will make the action anonymous and any of the rest of us, when we go to vote, nobody knows how we vote, it simply shows that we voted. This particular action will make sure that anybody who doesn’t want to vote is not recorded as not having voted. Thank you.

Thank you, for that clarification, Ms. Bisaro. Anything further to the motion?

Question has been called.

---Carried

Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The motion is in order. To the motion.