This is an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Minister of State for Democratic Reform, Pierre Poilièvre.
Would it make sense to tell a dietician to stop promoting good nutrition? Of course not. In a similar manner, it does not make any sense to tell Elections Canada to stop promoting voting.
Elections Canada has a very successful education program called ‘Student Vote’.
Teachers can obtain from Elections Canada a kit containing a myriad of excellent resources for teaching students all about the Canadian electoral process. When combined with the skills of an enthusiastic and dedicated teacher, the program gets young people excited about their critical future role as engaged citizens of our democratic country.
This program has been used successfully in schools all across Canada. When a young student tells their teacher, “I can’t wait to be old enough to vote”, there is no doubt that the program has been successful. It has achieved its desired goal of getting young people interested in voting.
Unbelievably, the Student Vote program is going to be eliminated. Why? It is going to be eliminated because Elections Canada has been informed that they are no longer allowed to promote voting. This is contained in Section 18 of the ironically named ‘Fair Elections Act’ that is presently being proposed. The future role of Elections Canada as applied to voting, will simply be to tell electors where and when to vote, as well what identification they will need.
The Chief Electoral Officer, Marc Mayrand, has said that, to his knowledge, the regulations in the ‘Fair Elections Act’ are the most restrictive regulations of any democratic country in the world. As well as preventing Elections Canada from doing anything that promotes voting, the proposed law would place further restrictions on the ability of Elections Canada to investigate election fraud, such as what has occurred with the robocalls scandal. The act does not give Elections Canada the much needed power to compel a witness to testify. Another clause in the act will result in less transparency about donations, which is another cause for much concern. Canadians cannot ignore what is happening to our democracy. If this continues, the democratic Canada that we love will no longer exist. Elections Canada needs more power, not less.
Elections Canada must be allowed to continue its role of encouraging young people to vote through successful programs such as ‘Student Vote’.
Frances Anne Côté
Iroquois Falls, ON
