Henry Charles Usher, the Minister of the Public Service, commented on the matter this morning when he was a guest on Sunup on 7. He outlined the official process of reconciliation that the Elections and Boundaries Department engaged in. They had the duty to confirm that the Churches had met the 10% threshold to trigger the referendum on marijuana legalization.
According to the Minister, early reports from the Elections and Boundaries Department are that the boxes of petitions submitted by the churches 60 days ago were more than enough:
Henry Charles Usher - Minister of the Public Service
"On May 5th, the Governor-General handed over the petitions, and the number of signatures, to the Chief Elections Officer. By law, the Chief Elections Officer had two months in which to verify that the number of signatures met the threshold of 10% of the total voting population. So for the last 60 days or so, the Chief Elections Officer, helped by other workers from Public Service - had requested some additional staff from the Ministry of Public Service, and we provided that staff to her, to go through the signatures, verify that they are correct. Verify that they are voters. You also have to be voters registered on the voter's lists. And yesterday, the Chief Elections Officer submitted her findings to the Governor-General. And of course, it has been reported in the news that, yes, the petitioners did make their 10%. I believe it was 10.0% of the total voting population on May the fifth, signed the petition. So, yes, according to the Referendum Act, a referendum on that particular issue has been triggered. What happens next? Well, the Governor-General has 30 days in which to issue a Writ of Referendum. And then when that writ is issued date is set in that it can be more than 30 days from the date the Writ is issued. So we're looking at a maximum of 60 days from yesterday, which would be September 4th."
Brandon Usher
"And how do you feel that this will swing?"
Henry Charles Usher
"That's a good question. You know, let me say that this is part of our democratic process, and really, we have to understand that. I heard some comments yesterday, but why is it that this is happening now? Why can't the government just pass the law? Well, there is a process or there's a law that allows petitioners to go ahead and challenge certain issues. They want to know what the population is feeling like. And I think that's important to recognize that the referendum act does allow the population to say, you know what, we want to know what the entire country is saying on this particular issue. And it requires that 10% of the total voters sign a petition. So to answer your question, I'm not sure we'll have to find out when the vote happens."
