Employers: How the Municipal Election Act Affects You

EP Update - November 3, 2003

The Municipal Election Act grants rights to voters to ensure they will have ample opportunity to vote and imposes corresponding obligations on employers.

Employer Responsibilities

1. Employees are entitled to three (3) consecutive hours to vote on voting day. As such, employers are required to give their employees as much time as is necessary for employees to have the three consecutive hours to vote.

2. The employer cannot deduct these hours from the employee’s pay, nor can it penalize the employee for taking the time off.

3. An employer is entitled to schedule the absence to suit its convenience as much as possible, but may have to tolerate some inconvenience.

4. An employee does not have to request time off to be entitled to it.

Failure to comply above-mentioned requirements is an offence and is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000.00.

Please Note:

These statutory provisions do not necessarily entitle an employee to time off to vote on election day. For example, the polls for a municipal election are open from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Therefore, if your employees start work at or after 1:00 p.m. or finish work earlier than 5:00 p.m., then you are not required to provide employees with time off to vote, as they have three consecutive hours to vote.