Compromise reached in election issue for Hydro

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This article was published 18/10/2019 (2150 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Elections Canada and Manitoba Hydro have come up with a plan so the ongoing post-storm repair response does not prevent field workers from casting a ballot in the federal election Monday.

On Thursday, an Elections Canada spokeswoman said employees who are working outside their home riding — and who did not vote in advanced polls or order a special mail-in ballot — would not be able to vote Oct. 21 because of election laws. Less than 24 hours later, the utility released a statement announcing the contrary.

“This is great news for all involved. Working with Elections Canada in Ottawa, we have been able to develop a plan to ensure our staff can vote while staying in the areas they are working in,” Manitoba Hydro president and chief executive officer Jay Grewal said in a release Friday afternoon.

An estimated 1,000 employees will still be in the field tackling outages in the Ashern, Arborg, Portage la Prairie and Dauphin areas on election day.

Grewal said the Crown corporation had always intended its staff would get time off in order to participate in the democratic process. The latest development, she added, will save hours of travel time for employees.

Elections Canada spokeswoman Marie-France Kenny said Friday the federal agency is making arrangements so utility workers with both Manitoba Hydro and SaskPower will be able to cast ballots wherever they are working.

Kenny said Elections Canada staff believed there were no options earlier this week — “and then somebody came up with a brilliant idea.”

She declined to comment on how the process will play out Monday, because the agency is still working out the details.

“It’s a really good gesture and I think very much appreciated by the staff,” said Mike Espenell, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2034, the union that represents the utility’s field workers.

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Espenell said Friday he had heard from several staff who were concerned about their ability to vote on election day.

“(Despite) the conditions they’ve been working in — armpit deep in water, ice-cold water — they just keep plugging away,” he added.

As of Friday evening, Manitoba Hydro was still dealing with more than 4,200 reported outages.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie

Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie.

Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.