Marc Mayrand

Marc Mayrand (born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada), is formerly a Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada, a position he held from 2007-2016.

Career

Mayrand studied law at the University of Ottawa and the London School of Economics.

He taught briefly, then joined the national Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy in 1982, and stayed until 2007. He rose to the top job there in 1997.

In 2007, he was appointed Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada, an independent agency of the Parliament of Canada responsible for supervising the election campaign financing and voting methods. He refused to alter the voting procedure to require Muslim women to remove the veil, as it was not in the Elections Act as written by parliamentarians.^[1]

In 2011, he called on Parliament to revamp the current election laws, which include lifting the blackout of television and radio election coverage in areas where polls are still open, due to the expansion of the use of social media, citing that "its very intelligibility and usefulness in a world where the distinction between private communication and public transmission is quickly eroding."^[2][3]

Mayrand is the only other-wised eligible Canadian who is not permitted to vote in Federal Elections. In a Supreme Court Decision on the Constitutional voting right of Richard Sauvé, a former member of the Satan's Choice biker gang who was imprisoned, it was determined that all Canadians living in the country are eligible to vote in the federal election — except for Canada's Chief Electoral Officer.

Mayrand has announced that he was stepping down from his position as of December 28, 2016 in order to allow his successor to be involved in any changes the government should choose to make to the voting system in Canada.^[4]

References