Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault said he is opposed to an amendment to legislation that moves the date of the next federal election back by a week, as it would interfere with Nunavut’s territorial election.
Testifying before the House Affairs committee on Nov. 21, Perrault said the amendment of Bill C-65, An Act To Amend The Canada Elections Act, would pose challenges for the Nunavut election scheduled for Oct. 27, 2025. The provision in the bill would move the date of the next federal election from Oct. 20, 2025, to Oct. 27, 2025.
“The date in the bill would conflict with the territorial election in Nunavut, which presents unique challenges for recruiting election officers and leasing polling locations and could compromise our ability to serve electors in the territory. For this reason, I do not support the change of the election date,” he said.
Perrault said he was supportive of other provisions in Bill C-65, such as new rules to restrict foreign funding of third parties, measures to remove barriers for certain groups of electors, codifying Elections Canada’s “vote on campus” service, and reducing the number of signatures required for nominations from 100 to 75. He recommended the committee make changes to ballot accessibility measures, as well as make changes to prohibit generative and deepfake AI that foreign adversaries could use to reduce public trust in elections.
While Section 1 of the Canada Elections Act states that an election must be held on the third Monday of October, the Liberals proposed moving the election day back by a week because many communities will be celebrating the holiday of Diwali at that time. Back in 2019, the election conflicted with the Jewish holidays of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, but Perrault ultimately decided against changing the date, because it would have impacted Elections Canada’s ability to “provide accessible voting services across the country.”
Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs have raised concerns that the election date change would ensure parliamentary pensions for dozens of MPs who were first elected in 2019, many of whom are currently not forecast to be re-elected. The Members of Parliament Pension Plan states that MPs 55 years of age and older qualify after six years of service, but the original election date would mean MPs elected on Oct. 21, 2019, would fail to qualify.
Changing Election Date
During the committee meeting, several Conservative and Bloc MPs asked Perrault about Jan. 25 and March 30 meetings between representatives from the NDP, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Elections Canada, and Leblanc’s office to discuss the legislation. Conservative representatives met with Perrault on Feb. 20, while representatives from the Bloc met with him on Feb. 28.Conservative MP Eric Duncan asked whether there were any meetings besides Jan. 25 or March 30 where Perrault met with the NDP in advance of the bill being announced. Perrault responded that he “conveyed the same messages to all sides,” and that he did not participate in the drafting of the bill.
Conservative MP Michael Cooper asked Perrault to clarify that there were no representatives from the PMO at the meetings with Elections Canada and the NDP. When Perrault confirmed that representatives had been there, Cooper said it “sounds like a very different meeting” from the ones the Conservatives and Bloc had.
Bloc MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau said the Liberals appear to be trying to “defend the interests of a high number of its MPs” by pushing back the election date. Perrault said he won’t “speculate on the intentions” and there is no “perfect date” for an election.
“I would encourage parliamentarians to not change the date and leave the plan as it is, which allows the chief electoral officer to make a recommendation if he believes that the date is not appropriate,” he said.
During the meeting, NDP MP Lindsay Mathyssen said her party intends to introduce an amendment to return the election to its original date.
