The next B.C. provincial election will be held on May 14, 2013.
The British Columbia Election Act imposes certain
obligations on employers to ensure that employees have sufficient
time free from work to exercise their constitutional right to
vote.
Time Off For Voting
The B.C. Election Act states in section 74 that an
employer must ensure that each employee eligible to vote has four
consecutive hours off from work in which to vote. This
does not mean the employee is entitled to four hours off from work,
but rather that the employee must have a four hour period in which
he or she is not scheduled to be at work during voting hours.
Time off can be at the beginning of a shift, the middle of a
shift, the end of a shift, or not be necessary at all if the
employee's normal working hours already provide the required
time off from work. For example, if an employee is normally
scheduled to work from 8:30 to 4:30, the employer is required to
either let the employee start
