Connect A Delmanor Resident. Ph oto taken prior to COVI D. delmanor.com Virtual Tours Available. Call to Discover The Delmanor Difference. RICHMOND HILL (905) 770-7963 AURORA (905) 503-9505 Opening late 2021 DON MILLS (416) 331-9797 ETOBIco*kE (416) 233-0725 OAKVILLE (905) 469-3232 NORTH YORK (416) 225-9146 STAR SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2021 ON0 ON LONG WEEKEND SALE! PAY NOOO TAX! FEB 12-15 BADBOY.CA Voters in Newfoundland and Labrador will not be heading to the polls as planned on Satur- day.
In response to tests identify- ing one of the more contagious variants of the coronavirus as the cause of the outbreak spreading through the most densely populated part of the province, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Janice Fitzgerald on Friday night announced that the prov- ince would be immediately moving to Alert Level 5, its most restrictive level. In turn, Chief Electoral Offi- cer Bruce Chaulk ordered the suspension of in-person voting for the whole province. am suspending in-person voting for all 40 provincial elec- toral he said in a re- lease. voting will not be rescheduled.
The election will now shift exclusively to vot- ing by mail, using Special Bal- a move that will surely in- crease scrutiny on Newfound- land Premier Andrew Furey, who has been heavily criticized for pushing ahead with an early election in in the midst of a pan- demic, in a province that has largely been spared the worst ravages of the health crisis. Opposition parties had called for the election to be post- poned, and provincial legisla- tion would have allowed Furey who took the helm of his par- ty after the resignation of for- mer premier Dwight Ball in Au- gust to schedule an election as late as August. Furey is trying to turn his Liberal minority government into a majority. In an unusual late Friday night briefing, the chief medical offi- cer announced that tests had identified the coronavirus caus- ing the outbreak in the area around St. as one of the highly contagious variants first spotted in the U.K., the B.1.1.7 variant.
know that if not con- trolled, it becomes a predomi- nant strain within weeks of first Fitzgerald said. Earlier in the day, Fitzgerald had announced another 50 new COVID cases, down from 100 the day before. That left a total of 260 active cases from the current out- break almost 40 per cent of all the cases recorded in the province over the duration of the coronavirus epidemic. Under the Alert Level 5, gatherings of more than five people are prohibited, indoor recreational activities are shut down, and restaurants, bars and non-essential stores are closed. Before suspending in-person voting, CEO Chaulk had on Thursday hit the pause button on voting in almost half of the ridings those hit by the outbreak for at least two weeks.
In that statement, he cited the mass resignation of election workers who feared contact with the public on Elec- tion Day. Experts said at the time that that could open the results up to legal challenges. Cancelling in-person voting and extending the deadline for mail-in ballots to March 1, as per his latest statement, is unlikely to change that opinion. a lot going on, and a lot of that is obviously quite problematic from either the ad- ministrative point of view, on the one hand, or legal point of view on the other said St. lawyer Geoff Budden, who has himself previously challenged the elec- toral legislation on a separate matter.
Chaulk has cited Section 10 of the Elections Act as his author- ity. That section, in part, says that in or unforeseen the chief elec- toral officer may the time for doing an act or other- wise adapt a provision of this Part to the execution of its in- section does allow me to change the election date and make changes as necessary in order to adhere to the legisla- Chaulk said Thursday. But some legal experts have taken a different view. While Section 10 says, in gen- eral terms, that the chief elec- toral officer has the authority to extend certain deadlines, there is nothing that specifically says he has the power to extend an election campaign. seems quite a stretch to say (it empowers) the chief elector- al officer to do what doing.
Quite a Budden said. certainly say on its face that the chief electoral offi- cer is powered, if he sees fit, to extend the election beyond the polling date, as it was estab- lished when the writ was The Elections Act specifies that when a general election is being held, shall be held on the same day in each It also states that the maximum length of time for a campaign is 35 days after the election is announced. The original election day on Saturday sits on the 29th day after the writ was dropped. With the extension until March 1 for mail-in ballots to be re- ceived, that would elongate the campaign to 45 days. nothing that explic- itly permits said Budden.
find it a stretch to say that some sort of implicit au- thority by any reasonable read- ing of Section 10. That seems to be the consensus of commenta- tors, both national and That alone, said Budden, cracks the window open for po- tential and probable legal challenges. While legal challenges that overturn results in individual ridings are not rare, a court ac- tion that encompasses all of the ridings in a province could be unprecedented. In a worst-case scenario, some have speculated, legal action over the chief elec- toral authority to take actions during an election could lead to a redo of the entire election. envy Mr.
Budden said. no obvi- ous solutions here. a ques- tion of least bad N.L. axes in-person vote night before election Sudden switch to mail-in ballots after tests linked outbreak to B.1.1.7 variant STEVE MCKINLEY STAFF REPORTER Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, Newfoundland and chief medical officer, announced on Friday night that the province would be immediately moving to Alert Level 5, its most restrictive level.
GOVERNMENT OF know that if not controlled, it becomes a predominant strain within weeks of first N.L. CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER DR. JANICE FITZGERALD.
