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Friday September 10, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 10, 2021

It’s time to vote: Advanced polling opening to Canadians during pandemic election

The time to vote has arrived – in person, that is.

October 29, 2014

Millions of Canadians will be able to cast their ballots at voting stations on Friday as advanced polls open across the country. Any eligible voter will have until Sept. 13 to mark their ballots at a polling station in their riding as part of the advanced window.

Advanced voting is proving to be a popular method in Canada’s elections, said Dugald Maudsley, an Elections Canada spokesperson.

He told Global News that in the 2019 election, 4,840,300 voters went out to advanced polls while 3,657,415 did so in 2015.

With the country is in a COVID-19 fourth wave, Maudsley said it’s possible the turnout for advanced polling will increase again this time around – but anything can happen.

“Often (advanced polling stations are) not as crowded, they’re not as busy and it’s a way to get in efficiently and get your vote done,” he said.

“We’re really telling people that voting in person at advanced polls and on election day is still the simplest and most efficient way to vote.”

June 19, 2020

Canada has been in election mode since Aug. 15 and party leaders have been busy touring the country in an effort to get voters on their sides. The leaders took part in the first of two official debates Wednesday night, trading blows in French. The English-language debate took place Thursday night.

The debates are happening at a time when some Canadians still don’t know who they’re voting for. A new Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News found 13 per cent of those surveyed are undecided.

With advanced polling here, Maudsley wants Canadians to know in-person voting will be safe during the fourth wave. He compared in-person voting to visiting the grocery store, and voters can expect Elections Canada staff to follow all health protocols.

Federal Election 2021

For example, he said Canadians can expect poll workers to be wearing face masks and shields, and that they’ll be behind plexiglass. There will also be sanitation stations and social distancing will be enforced.

“You really won’t be there for very long once you’ve checked yourself in,” Maudsley said. “It’s really about a five-minute process to vote.” (Global News) 

 

Tuesday April 28, 2015

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 28, 2015

Duffy trial could go longer than expected, Judge Vaillancourt warns

The trial of suspended senator Mike Duffy may drag past its scheduled end date in June and on into the summer, the fall federal election campaign or even beyond into 2016.

“At the rate we’re going” the trial will need more than the 41 days set aside in April, May and June, Judge Charles Vaillancourt suggested Wednesday, urging lawyers to think about scheduling more time to finish.

“I don’t see us completing our task in the assigned number of days,” he said in court.

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By day’s end, as Vaillancourt left the Ottawa courthouse he was asked by reporters if he is confident the trial will wrap up before the expected fall election Oct. 19. He began to reply: “I haven’t — ” when another reporter interjected: “Or this year even?”

“No comment,” he said. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take because I don’t control the number of witnesses or how long it takes with each witness. So we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Vaillancourt said his schedule can always be rearranged, and he is prepared to come back to Ottawa from Toronto to deal with the case but it’s not clear whether other court resources, including the courtroom, and other key players are available. (Source: Toronto Star)

Reposted to National Newswatch and Yahoo Canada News.

Friday December 21, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday December 21, 2012

Doomsday didn’t come

Mayans squabble over post doomsday sales

It almost looks like a toy. In the darkness before dawn Friday, spiritualists prepared white clothes, drums, conch shells and incense ahead of the sunrise they believe will herald the birth of a new and better age as a vast, 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar comes to an end.

No one was quite sure at what time the Mayas’ 13th Baktun would officially end on this Dec. 21. Some think it already ended at midnight Thursday. Others looked to Friday’s dawn here in the Maya heartland. Some had later times in mind.

“Wait until the dawn on the 22nd; that is when we Maya will speak,” Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu said earlier in Guatemala, another Maya area.

Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History even suggested that historical calculations to synchronize the Mayan and Western calendars might be off a few days. It said the Mayan Long Count calendar cycle might not really end until Sunday.

Whatever the details, the chance to welcome a new time seemed to be the main concern among celebrants drawn to the Yucatan peninsula.

Many people who came to Yucatan for the occasion were already calling it “a new sun” and “a new era.”

What nobody was calling it is the end of the world, as some people in recent years have interpreted the meaning of the end of the 13th Baktun – despite the insistence of archeologists and the Maya themselves it meant no such thing. (Source: CTV News)