Elections Canada this week began preparation for printing ballots for electors with disabilities in anticipation of a general campaign kicking off this summer, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. Though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2022 signed a Supply And Confidence Agreement with Jagmeet Singh’s NDPs, a coalition to keep the Liberals in power until June 30 2025, parliament has been preparing for a snap election since last year. Liberal Party campaign committee co-chairs were appointed November 8 2023, and Elections Canada has appointed returning officers in federal ridings as well as approved a marketing campaign targeting 2.7 million electors under age 25. In a written request to contractors, Elections Canada ordered the printing of special ballots for electors with disabilities from August 1. In a one-year contract, the agency wrote it seeks “the professional services of a contractor to act as an independent expert to produce the list of candidates in Braille to assist visually impaired electors to vote independently.”Elections Canada on Monday completed revisions to constituency boundaries. Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault told the House Affairs Committee afterwards, “We will need to be able to pivot overnight and be ready to hold an election should one be called based on the new map.”The agency would also complete electronic voters’ lists “should an election be called in 2024,” added Perrault. An Elections Canada report, entitled Voter Information Campaign For The 45th General Election: Qualitative Pre-Event Communications Testing With Youth, found that less than half of voters under 25 cast ballots in 2021’s federal election, but “many of them intend to vote in the upcoming federal election.”Due to Canada’s rapidly rising population, the next federal election will have 343 seats, an increase from last election’s 338. New ridings under the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act are Vernon-Lake Country, BC, Airdrie-Chestermere, Calgary McKnight and Spruce Grove-Leduc, AB, Brampton-Mayfield West, Lake Simcoe-Uxbridge and Wellington-Halton, ON. Toronto will lose one of 25 seats with redistricting, Scarborough-Agincourt currently held by Liberal MP Jean Yip, and northern Ontario representation is reduced from nine to eight ridings. MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay), the only NDP MP in the region, announced April 4 he will not seek re-election in the new boundaries.Boundary changes in Québec cost one MP her riding, Bloc Québécois MP Kristina Michaud (Avignon-La Mitis-Matane-Matapédia). “We are firmly opposed to this. It is unacceptable,” Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet earlier told reporters.Canada’s first Parliament in 1867 had 181 seats, none west of Lake Huron nor east of Cape Breton. MPs were chosen by show of hands in town hall meetings with staggered election days spread over a six-week period.
