Saskatoon voter frustrated over accessibility issues at polling station
Voting is a right every adult Canadian citizen has, but one Saskatoon man says his polling station wasn’t set up for him to enter in his wheelchair despite being led to believe it was accessible.
“The voter card said this site meets all 15 accessibility criteria for Roland Michener School,” Sikorski told CTV News.
The Elections Canada website outlines the criteria, which incudes level access to the entrance.
However, when Sikorski arrived to vote on Monday, he quickly realized he couldn’t get into the school gym door because the threshold was about seven centimetres high.
“Once I noticed it, I realized it was going to be no good for me to get in,” he said.
Sikorski says he was embarrassed as there was a lineup of people behind him and as someone who only began using a wheelchair in December, he’s only now starting to get out in after a brain aneurism left him paralyzed from the armpits down.
In an emailed statement, Elections Canada regional media advisor, Marie France-Kenny said she couldn't comment on the specific polling station.
However, she said the agency's returning officers "made every effort to choose polling locations that meet Elections Canada’s 15 mandatory accessibility criteria."
France-Kenny said changes required due to the COVID-19 pandemic have meant many locations used in the past were not available and returning officers needed to find bigger polling locations to allow for physical distancing.
"This means that polling places were sometimes in unusual locations or further from electors’ homes and may not have met all our accessibility criteria," France-Kenny said.
Sikorski doesn’t accept the explanation and says this particular school was his usual polling station in previous elections and is the usual location for voting in the neighbourhood where he’s lived for 14 years.
Sikorski says once the elections staff realized he couldn’t get into the gym where the polling was, they told him this accessibility concern was known to them.
“They said that they had identified it a week ago and no one did anything about it,” he said.
Sikorski did eventually get to vote, but he had to be escorted to the front doors of the school by his nurse and elections staff where there was a little ramp that he could get up, but then he was met by school staff.
“They didn’t necessarily want to let me in because of COVID and I said I was a parent and they let me in finally and I went through the entire school to get to the gym,” Sikorski said.
According to Elections Canada for the 2021 federal election, over 97 per cent of polling places meet its mandatory accessibility criteria or have level access. The same was true in 2019.
Sikorski is frustrated with the fact that despite the known issue, the site was still listed as accessible.
.He wants to bring awareness to the issue so that others don’t have to experience the same situation when heading to vote and he hopes to have the issue addressed for the next election.
He said he expecting a call from Elections Canada to hear his concern.
Elections Canada provides a link on its website for voters to submit feedback about accessibility issues at polls.
The agency encourages electors to provide feedback on accessibility to help improve its services.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Maple Leafs fall to Bruins in Game 3, trail series 2-1
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
New Indigenous loan guarantee program a 'really big deal,' Freeland says at Toronto conference
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
'Life was not fair to him': Daughter of N.B. man exonerated of murder remembers him as a kind soul
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.