Mr. Hughes' Complaints and EC's Investigation [16] In addition to his verbal complaint on the day of the election, Mr. Hughes made a written complaint to EC on March 20, 2008. 2 This was done with the assistance of his counsel. It was addressed to the attention of the Elections Officer at Elections Canada in Ottawa. For some unexplained reason, the letter was delivered to the wrong official at EC. That became evident when the Complainant's counsel received a response on March 26th from the General Counsel to the Commissioner of Canada Elections. The General Counsel acknowledged receipt of the letter, but said the subject matter of the complaint fell outside the jurisdiction of the Commissioner, who is responsible for compliance with, and enforcement of, the Canada Elections Act, S.C., 2000, c. 9, as amended ("CEA"). The General Counsel forwarded the letter to the Legal Services Directorate at EC. Mr. Hughes testified that he felt the letter he received was dismissive of his complaint. EC has no explanation as to why it was sent to the wrong office at its national headquarters in Ottawa. The letter was properly addressed. [17] Mr. Hughes stated that he heard nothing from EC regarding his verbal and written complaints to it (other than the letter from the Commissioner's General Counsel referred to in the preceding paragraph) until receiving EC's August 6, 2008 letter to the Commission. On June 5, 2008, he had filed a CHRA Complaint with the Commission. The August 6th letter was EC's response to the CHRA Complaint. Mr. Roussel said that he had his officials investigate Mr. Hughes' Complaint, although he didn't speak to them directly about it and didn't personally speak to the Toronto Centre Returning Officer ("RO") or other relevant EC officials at the St. Basil's Church polling stations. Voting in the October 14th General Election [18] On October 14, 2008, Canadians went to the polls in a federal general election. Mr. Hughes received a Voter Information Card, indicating that his polling station would be at St. Basil's Church once again. The Card even had the universal accessibility symbol on it. Mr. Hughes was hopeful that things would be different this time, that EC had addressed his concerns. [19] To his chagrin, the Complainant said he experienced the same lack of accessible voting on October 14th , except for the snow on the ground. When he went to St. Basil's, the front door (entrance #1) with its accessible ramp was again unavailable. This time he proceeded to entrance #2, where he found one of the doors was being held ajar by a broken rock. The Complainant testified that he could not open the heavy steel door 2010 CHRT 4 (CanLII) [15] Mr. Hughes described the entrance at the back as a "freight/emergency entrance". In his view, it was demeaning and not dignified. He remarked that it doesn't affirm a person as an actual person, but signals they should be handled as freight. I accept that he felt this way. There was a debate among counsel as to whether this constituted a segregated entrance, reminiscent of the images of the Old South in the United States. I make no finding in this regard. Suffice to say, the back entrance was not ideal or acceptable in the circumstances. None of the three entrances to the Church was accessible to Mr. Hughes. Entrance #1 was closed; entrance #2 was fraught with barriers (physically and symbolically); and entrance #3 was inaccessible due to the flight of stairs.