'I've never understood what "disenfranchisement" was, until now.' Readers, print and digital, debate expats' right to vote – and what it says about being a 'Canadian'
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A heartfelt thank you for Donald Sutherland's impassioned plea on expat voting rights (I Want To Vote – letters, July 29). I'm a proud Canadian who has been living and working in the United Arab Emirates for nearly eight years; I have a family of three children, all of whom hold Canadian passports. As a Canadian who has voted in every election since I came of voting age, I've never understood what "disenfranchisement" was, until now.
The Ontario Court of Appeal says non-residents do not live with the consequences of their votes on a daily basis, and therefore it would harm Canada's democracy to let them cast a ballot.
I am a parent whose children will be raised in Canada, a property owner, and a fiercely patriotic citizen. The federal government's policies do affect me on a daily basis, and after a federal election, will do so for the next four years.
Foreign policy and Canada's comportment on the international stage affect all Canadians around the world. Denying Canadians who have lived outside the country for more than five years our ability to have a voice in the selection of the government of our nation does more than diminish our rights. It damages the very heart of what it means to be a Canadian.
Derek Robson, Vancouver by way of Dubai
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If you are a Canadian living abroad, I don't think you should be allowed to vote on our government, which affects those of us who do live here! Why would you even want to?
Lorri Brown Jesse, Sherwood Park, Alta.
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At a time when far too few Canadians are voting, instead of our government and the courts doing what they can to encourage citizens to vote, we have the opposite. Denying Canadians living "too long" abroad the right to vote is even worse than putting up unnecessary obstacles to voting for those who do reside here. At least people can try to overcome those obstacles. Citizens who are responsible about voting should not be disenfranchised.
Kathlyn Liscomb, Victoria
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I love Donald Sutherland. But does he have to live with the consequences of whomever he votes for? I lived outside Canada for 13 years and didn't expect to vote.
Brigitte Le Normand, Kelowna, B.C.
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Many of those who left Canada did so for professional reasons in a labour market that is increasingly globalized. They still hold deep ties to Canada; indeed, each expat is an unofficial diplomat for the country in their (temporarily) adopted land.
Allowing those of us living beyond the political borders of Canada – but with attachments to the country – to have a political voice helps to shape a country with a more informed international policy (among other things), which is highly relevant in a society where trade and the cross-border movement of people are significant.
The Canadian identity is not defined by residency, but by a set of values, and by the belief in promoting these positive ideals around the world through our churning number of a million-plus "diplomats."
Kai L. Chan, Dubai
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I now live in Mexico, and will have done so for more than five years when the next election occurs. In what universe should that deny me the right to vote for a government that not only receives my tax dollars, but decides what I should pay? Will they revoke my passport next?
A large number of Canadian citizens live here, and I have to wonder why the court has decided to exclude us from the voting process. Most of us are well-educated and loyal to our country.
So the question is: Why?
Peter Howarth, San Juan Cosalá, Jalisco, Mexico
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I see Canadian citizens living abroad as antennae, observing world trends and sometimes using their votes as early warnings.
Lloyd Walton, Port Carling, Ont.
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Denying the vote to long-term Canadian expats is a complicated question – although I suspect that many, being non-residents for tax purposes, do not pay Canadian income tax.
More interesting is the number of non-residents who actually vote. The Report of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada states that in the 41st general election of May 2, 2011, there were 10,733 eligible non-resident electors who met the five-year-maximum non-resident requirement and 6,332 of them voted. The five-year non-residency limit is not new. It is just being more strictly enforced.
According to the report, "Up to and including the 2006 general election, anyone who had returned to Canada, even for a brief visit, was deemed to have 'resided' in the country and the five-year clock was reset, allowing them to vote by special ballot."
We are told there are more than one million Canadian expats, but I am guessing a huge percentage of those people have left Canada for good.
A better system would be the American one, where as long as you are a U.S. citizen, you pay U.S. taxes, no matter where you live.
Timothy Hicks, Toronto
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Many countries have restrictions on non-resident voting. Australia's is six years. New Zealand's is three years. Ireland has a full ban on non-resident voting. Canada's five years was passed into law in 1993 and recently upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal. Not sure why people think the provision was somehow enacted by the current Prime Minister. The tinfoil-hat set might want that to be otherwise, but it's just not the case.
Liam O'Brien, Ottawa
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If you deserve to have a Canadian passport, you deserve to vote.
Period.
Guy Pelletier, Montreal
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ON REFLECTION Letters to the Editor
Canada's dairy business
An average herd size of 77 cows brings to mind the 19th century (Is Canada Ready For The Dairy Wars ? – July 30). My sister and her husband ran 240 hectares in New Zealand with 460 cows, one full-time and one part-time worker. They knew their animals, it was hardly a "soulless" corporate farm.
In Romania in the 1990s, I once saw an elderly woman leading a single cow between roadside grass patches – apparently her full-time job. Maybe Dairy Farmers of Canada would see this as an even more progressive business model?
Keith Bradley, Mississauga
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Hunt … on the hustings
Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who paid to kill Cecil the lion, would make a great VP running mate for Donald Trump: He demonstrates the same degree of cultural sensitivity and clear-headed thinking; the Donald is urban and Mr. Palmer's outlook clearly hails from a backwoods time; both men seem to show the same degree of remorse after they've grossly offended someone.
The Donald should snap up the dentist before someone else does.
Gord Shantz, Mississauga
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Senate? Sacred, it's not
Even our American neighbours – many of whom seem to believe that their Constitution is so sacred, it was ghost written by the Holy Ghost – have seen fit to amend the document more than two dozen times.
Surely the abysmal track record of Canada's Senate demands an act of a constitutional change here. Most Canadians at least will concede that our Senate was not the creation of some deity, but of a group of 19th-century politicians, one of whom in particular had a delusional notion of "sober" second thought.
J. L. Elliott, Calgary
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Those Trudeau attack ads
Re Backers Fear That Missing-In-Action, Trudeau Losing Bid To Lead Canada (July 29): The Conservatives' anti-Trudeau attack ads ("He's Not Ready") appear to have been effective, but don't seem to have had the desired effect.
Rather than bolstering the Conservatives' chances, they seem to have driven potential Liberal supporters into the arms of the NDP.
Manuel Matas, Winnipeg
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Is it "Just not ready" or Justin time?
Bob Conibear, Duncan, B.C.
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