Good question. Here is Elections Canada’s response.

Eating a ballot, not returning it or otherwise destroying or defacing it constitutes a serious breach of the Canada Elections Act. These rules are part of a system of unobtrusive checks and balances that are intended to protect the integrity of the voting process and Canadians’ trust in the integrity of the electoral system. The relevant procedures provided by the Act are summarized below.

Don’t laugh, ballot eating is a real strategy put forth by the Edible Ballot Sociey:

Being guilt-tripped into voting for the least offensive politician isn’t synonymous with genuine democracy. Our electoral process is shallow – we don’t have any real power to make decisions, just the illusion of democracy. Unless we press for real change, we will continue to jump from election to election, gradually becoming bored into submission.

As if you weren’t already confused enough today…