Saskatoon councillor wants free bus service to polling stations on election day

The federal election is a little more than one week awayand pollsters are busy surveying which candidates Canadians will vote for on Oct. 19.

Unlike pollsters, Saskatoon's ward 1 city councillorDarren Hill is more interested in how voters will get to a polling station, rather than who they'll vote for.

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That's why he called a special city council meeting for Tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m. CST.He's going to proposefree bus rides for Saskatonians to the city's polling stations on election day.

"It's about insuring as many people vote as possible, and eliminating whatever barriers exist," said Hill."For some people, location [of a polling station] is not an issue. For others, distance is a significant issue."

"Since my [nine years] on council, Saskatoon has provided transit to Saskatoon municipal elections," he said, noting that he wants to implement the policy change for all future elections in the city municipal, provincial and federal.

Hill said he first got the idea from Saskatoon residents who told him about a similar proposal in Prince George, B.C.

On Monday, that city's council approved a motion to offer residents free bus rides to polling stations on Oct.19.

The expected cost for the service, if approved in Saskatoon, will be approximately $10,000, according to initial data Hill said he had looked at. He said the amount represents "an extremely small percentage" of Saskatoon transit's operating costs.

Eventually, he said he wants to implement the policy for provincial elections too, in time for the Saskatchewan provincial election on April 4, 2016.

"Saskatchewan is very much vehicle-based. It's ourindividual car mentality," he said. "People forget about the percentage of residents and citizens that rely 100 per cent on transit."