Your obligations to voters today

Today is voting day. Here are your legal obligations in terms of giving employees time off to vote in the federal election

Today is voting day.

By law you must give your employees adequate paid time off in order to vote. According to the law, “adequate time” is three hours.

Specifically, Section 132(1) of the Canada Elections Act says that employees who qualify as voters in a federal election are entitled to three consecutive hours — while the polls are open — in which to vote.

Upon request, employees must be granted sufficient time off work, with no deductions from wages, to make up the three consecutive hours.

You can get more information from Carswell’s payroll manuals: Canadian Payroll Manual, Owner’s Manager’s Payroll Manual, and Complete Payroll Manager. To subscribe to these payroll publications, contact Carswell’s customer relations department at 1-800-387-5164 or send them an e-mail.

Annie Chong is manager of the payroll consulting group at Carswell.

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