Bill No. 225 - Elections Act. - Second Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, I will rise to say a few words. We are supportive of this as has been mentioned. These changes have been kicking around for a long time.

I've had the opportunity to meet with the Chief Electoral Officer and discuss these. Of course, Elections Nova Scotia is an independent body, reports to all members of this House, not just to the minister. I've been pleased to have an open line with them and pleased to see most of the changes that have been brought forward coming into force in this bill.

I think the modernization in general is great. I think there are lots of little changes that just needed to happen. As the minister spoke of, the ability for electors to note their preferred gender rather than sex is important. This is a positive change that we're seeing across legislation and that I think is going to be a meaningful change for many Nova Scotians.

We're very pleased to see campaign expenses expanded to include elder care, child care and accessibility. We have lots of questions about how that will be enacted, how that will be calculated, how that will be rebated at the federal level - it's a separate rebate. I don't know what that will look like, but we are certainly eager to see it. Perhaps we'll hear something at the Committee on Law Amendments about how that might come forward and be codified.

I really like my colleague's suggestion that we could tie advance votes to a poll and mark them as advanced. I think statistically that would be a helpful thing in the political process as we move more and more to continuous polling and advance voting. That's likely something that may or may not have been discussed, but I think it's something that makes eminent sense.

As far as the advance votes, I confess I actually fell asleep before my district was called, it was so early in the morning. So, I think that is a welcome change, that people will have more certainty over the outcome of the ballot that they cast earlier in the evening this time.

With those few comments, I'll look forward to hearing comments at the Committee on Law Amendments, and I will take my seat.