2023 Bencher Elections

The following information was provided by FOLA April 12, 2023

As you know, the 2023 Bencher election is now upon us and voting opens next week. Voting runs from April 19th-28th. You can vote online or by phone and both systems shut down promptly at 5pm on the 28th so please don’t leave this to the last minute!

YOUR VOTE MATTERS!

As you know from past experience, the Law Society Benchers have a direct impact on all Law Association members - they determine our Law Library Funding!

To help inform Law Association members about where the candidates stand on issues of importance to you, we surveyed all Candidates on priority issues, including their history with their local Law Association, Law Library funding, support for legal aid, and their stance on paralegal licencing. Candidate responses (summaries and full, unedited responses) are available here. Note: They appear in alphabetical order starting with Central East.

HOW TO VOTE:

Voting is by secret ballot and can be done online or by phone. You may only vote for a single candidate once and only submit votes once.

ONLINE VOTING:

You must go to the election website through the link provided by Computershare, where you will be prompted to enter your control number to access the voting site. Once logged into the system, the list of candidates will be displayed.

Select candidates by clicking the boxes next to the candidates’ names. The voting system will not permit you to vote for more than 20 candidates in the section of the ballot for inside Toronto and 20 candidates in the section of the ballot for outside of Toronto. You do not need to cast all 20 votes in each section of the ballot. It is possible to submit a ballot with no candidates selected.

Once you have made their selections from both the outside of, and inside Toronto candidates,

and click the “submit” button, you will be prompted to review your selections and make any changes prior to final submission of their votes. Once the votes are submitted, you will receive a confirmation message that your votes have been submitted.

PHONE VOTING:

To vote by telephone, call the dedicated election phone number: 1-866-301-0994 (toll-free) or 514-982-8712 if outside North America. Once connected, you will be prompted to enter or say your control number to access the voting system.

The first voting prompt is for the ballot for outside of Toronto candidates. The second prompt is for the ballot for inside Toronto candidates.

You will be prompted to select the candidates of your choice first for outside of Toronto by entering or saying the two-digit numeric code appearing beside each candidate’s name on pages 11 and 12 in the Lawyer Voting Guide. This process is then repeated for inside Toronto candidates.

The voting system will not permit you to vote for more than 20 candidates in the section of the ballot for inside Toronto and 20 candidates in the section of the ballot for outside of Toronto. You do not need to cast all 20 votes in each section of the ballot. It is possible to submit a ballot with no candidates selected.

Once you have finished selecting both the inside and outside of Toronto candidates, the system will review your selections and ask you to confirm them before recording the votes.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Computershare will randomly assign a unique personal voter identification number, called a control number, to every eligible voter. Only Computershare knows the numbers assigned to eligible voters. The control number is required to access the online voting system and the telephone voting system.

The control number and information on how to access the online voting site will be posted to each eligible voter’s Law Society Portal account by April 19, 2023 which is the date voting is scheduled to open. Computershare will also send voting information by email to all eligible voters at the time voting opens on April 19, 2023.

Eligible voters who do not receive their control number must contact Computershare at 1-888-344-2805 (toll-free) or 514-982-2391 if outside Canada or the United States, Monday to Friday 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m EDT. (Note: you will be asked to provide your Law Society licensee number and other personal identifiers to receive their control number).

HOW THE VOTE WORKS

Forty lawyer benchers will be elected – 20 from inside Toronto and 20 from outside Toronto. Of the 40 benchers, eight will be elected as regional benchers. The regional bencher is the candidate within each region who receives the most votes from voters in that region. The business address of the regional bencher must be within that electoral region at the time of election.

For the purposes of the election, the province is divided into eight electoral regions. The eight electoral regions are as follows:

• City of Toronto Electoral Region

• Northwest Electoral Region (NW) - composed of the territorial districts of Kenora, Rainy River, and Thunder Bay.

• Northeast Electoral Region (NE) - composed of the territorial districts of Algoma, Cochrane,

Manitoulin, Nipissing, Parry Sound, Sudbury, and Timiskaming.

• East Electoral Region (E) - composed of the counties of Frontenac, Hastings, Lanark, Lennox and Addington, Prince Edward and Renfrew, the united counties of Leeds and Grenville, Prescott and Russell and Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, and the City of Ottawa.

• Central East Electoral Region (CE) - composed of the District Municipality of Muskoka, the counties of Haliburton, Northumberland, Peterborough and Simcoe, the City of Kawartha Lakes, and the regional municipalities of Durham and York.

• Central West Electoral Region (CW) - composed of the counties of Bruce, Duferin, Grey and

Wellington, and the regional municipalities of Halton and Peel.

• Central South Electoral Region (CS) - composed of the counties of Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk, the regional municipalities of Niagara and Waterloo, and the City of Hamilton.

• Southwest Electoral Region (SW) - composed of the counties of Elgin, Essex, Huron, Lambton,

Middlesex, Oxford and Perth, and the Municipality of Chatham-Kent.

For candidates outside Toronto, the candidate’s region is identified on the ballot by a notation after the candidate’s name. A list of the candidates from each region is included in the Voting Guide.

Candidates from each region who receive the most votes from voters in that region will be declared regional benchers. The remaining 32 benchers will be the 13 candidates from outside of Toronto who receive the most votes from all voters and the 19 candidates from inside Toronto who receive the most votes from all voters.

You can cast 40 votes in total – up to 20 votes for candidates inside Toronto and up to 20 votes for candidates outside of Toronto. The ballot is separated into two sections. One section lists candidates from inside Toronto. The other section lists candidates from outside of Toronto.

VOTING DEADLINE

The deadline for voting is April 28, 2023 at 5 p.m. EDT. The online and telephone voting systems will shut down at precisely 5 p.m. EDT on April 28, 2023.

INFORM YOURSELF

Take a moment to review the responses from all Candidates who responded to FOLA’s survey here (by region, alphabetically starting with Central East).