Easter ballots

The Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Thunder Bay is disappointed advance polling for the May 2 federal election has been scheduled throughout the Easter weekend, including on Good Friday.

With Easter weekend being one of the busiest religious times of the year, Bishop Fred Colli said fitting in a trip to the polls is an added burden for people.

Advance polls are open noon to 8 p.m. Good Friday, Saturday, April 23 and Easter Monday.

“It’s just sort of unusual that we would have advance polling during the holy weekend of Easter,” Colli said. “It just seem to maybe smack a little bit that religion is not that important and maybe politics is a little bit more important than religion for people on that weekend.

“I don’t think the government is really thinking about that,” he added. “However, I think that both are important – that people share in Easter ceremonies and that they make sure that if they can vote, they do vote in this election.”

Advance polls always take place on the Friday, Saturday and Monday a week before Election Day; this year Easter weekend became the default period for early voting, an Elections Canada spokesperson told the Toronto Star.

Colli said the president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote to Elections Canada when the advance poll dates were first revealed expressing concern for people working the voting stations who also want to attend Easter ceremonies.

“Elections Canada wrote back and said they understood our concern and they would be willing to adjust schedules for people if it was needed in order for them to attend services,” Colli said.

And while Colli said some churches that have opened their doors as polling stations in the past, they may not be able to this year because of regularly scheduled Easter events.

“I want people to understand that to vote in an election is a very important thing and that I would hope they wouldn’t be deterred to vote because advance polling is taking place during the Easter weekend,” he said.