Workers had option to vote online, by phone during off hours
An Ontario employer did not violate elections legislation and the voting rights of two workers when it declined their request for three hours off during regular voting hours on election day, an arbitrator has ruled.
Grey County Paramedic Services (GCPS) provides emergency ambulance service to Grey County in Ontario. Like all municipalities in the province, there was a municipal election on Oct. 24, 2022.
On Oct. 21, GCPS sent an email to all emergency medical staff asking them to advise as soon as possible if they needed time off on election day. The Ontario Municipal Elections Act allows electors at least three consecutive hours on voting day in order to cast their ballot. Employers were required to allow anyone with a work schedule that didn’t allow for three hours off to be absent from work for three hours.
Two paramedics requested time off to vote on election day as they were both scheduled to work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. One paramedic lived in Owen Sound, Ont., and the other in the Town of the Blue Mountains, Ont. The voting period in both towns ran from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., during which time election help centres would be open.
However, voters also had the option of voting online or by telephone from midnight to 8 p.m. on election day, and those measures were also open every day between Oct. 14 and 24. The Blue Mountains allowed residents to vote at a public library and another location with computer terminals available.
Request for time off rejected
GCPS declined the workers’ request on the basis that they had more than three hours to vote online or by telephone before their shift started. Both of them ended up voting online during the day during a break in work, as they had access to a computer at the workplace.
The union filed grievances on the workers’ behalf alleging that they were denied three consecutive hours to vote as required by the act. It pointed to the fact that another paramedic who was scheduled to work 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. was granted three hours off. That paramedic resided in a town which only offered in-person or by-mail voting.
The union argued that the act must be read in a broad manner with regard to the purpose of enfranchising voters and maximizing democratic participation. GCPS, by not granting three hours off during regular voting hours to the two workers under the act, was dictating how they should vote, the union said, adding that the employer’s interpretation resulting in less working hours when employees could exercise their voting rights.
The union also said not linking the three hours off to in-person polls could impact some groups disproportionately.
The arbitrator agreed that the language of legislation should be read in their entire context in their ordinary sense in line with the object of the act and lawmakers, while avoiding absurd consequences.
Election day
The arbitrator found that, given the voting arrangement in the towns where the two workers lived, neither of them were “electors whose hours of employment were such that they did not have three consecutive hours to vote on voting day.” The act provided for three consecutive hours to “vote on voting day” with no indication that it meant specific hours when voters could attend in-person if there were other options available, said the arbitrator.
The arbitrator noted that the specific prevision requiring three consecutive hours to vote didn’t include the term “voting place.” As such, the right conferred to employees was to vote during the voting day, not at a specific voting place, the arbitrator said, adding that this served the purpose of enfranchising people to vote in any way the municipality made available.
The employer noted that the paramedic who was granted three hours off didn’t have the option of voting online or by telephone, so GCPS was required to provide the time off.
“It is true that any three consecutive hours on voting day for these [workers] would have been between midnight and 7 a.m., and that typically one would expect a daytime worker to be asleep during much of that period,” said the arbitrator.
“However, the overall context is one in which these [workers] had a full 10 days – between Oct. 14 and 24, 2022 – with online and telephone voting open around the clock and election help centres open for various hours on each of those days.”
The arbitrator determined that the workers had three consecutive hours in which to vote and GCPS did not violate the act by rejecting their request for those hours off during regular voting hours. The grievances were dismissed. See Grey County Paramedic Services v. Ontario Public Service Employees Union/Syndicat des employés de la function publicque de l’Ontario, Local 250, 2024 CanLII 35334.
