Making Sure the Majority Don't Get There

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Things could get ugly when the polls open on Election Day, 2015. Stephen Maher writes:

When Elections Canada mails out Voter Information Cards this fall, a new sentence in bold letters will appear at the bottom: Please note that this card is not a piece of ID.

This means that on election day, tens of thousands of people will likely turn up at their polling station, voter cards in hand, only to learn that they can’t vote.

In the last election, 400,000 Canadians used these cards to identify themselves. Another 120,171 had someone, usually a neighbour or relative, vouch for their identity.

This time there will be none of that, thanks to the Fair Elections Act passed by the Conservative government last year.

It's not that this problem was unforeseen. Harry Nuefeld, an expert on Canadian elections, warned the Conservatives that there would be problems:

“It can be anticipated that many tens of thousands of otherwise fully qualified voters will simply be unable to meet the new attestation-of-residence requirements,” he writes. "During my 33 years of election administration … my observation is that voting fraud which involves persons deciding to impersonate someone else, or find some other creative way to vote more than once, is extremely rare in this country.” 

But Pierre Poilievre, the minister responsible for ramming the "Fair" Elections Act through Parliament, would have none of it. There was potential fraud everywhere, he claimed. What he didn't say was that he and his party know that the majority of Canadians don't buy what he and they are selling. The only way to stay in power is to make sure that the majority of Canadians don't get to the polls.

An Ugly Blast From The Past

It's not news to note that the Harper government is fixated on the past. From dropping the word "progressive" from the party's moniker to building a resource based economy -- with the focus on one resource -- the Harperites are detemined  to make the clock run backwards. And the "Fair" Elections Act is part of that agenda. Paul Adams writes that, when Canada was founded, the franchise was not available to everyone:

We tend to think of women’s suffrage as the last significant extension of the franchise, occurring around the time of the First World War. We also tend to think of the expansion of the franchise as a steady forward march. Bit by bit, more and more people got the vote, and steadily we become more democratic.

The process has been much more herky-jerky than that.

Two years after women got the vote, Parliament re-affirmed that aboriginal people, including Inuit, could not participate in elections. Nor could minorities such as Chinese, Japanese or Hindus vote federally in places such as British Columbia and Saskatchewan where they were barred from voting provincially.

Canada's first inhabitants have been overlooked since we -- the Europeans -- arrived.  Pierre Poilievre proposes to continue that policy:

Most Canadians don’t live on reserves. Most Canadians don’t have parents or grandparents who were forbidden from voting by law. And most Canadians would have trouble imagining the circumstances of those who do.

As First Nations leaders have pointed out, many people living on reserves don’t have driver’s licences or even bank accounts. Interestingly, ‘status cards’ — the core identification document on reserves — have a photograph but not the address required by the proposed bill. Moreover, these cards expire and may be difficult to renew.

We know that aboriginal people rely on the vouching provisions of the current law to a far greater degree than other Canadians for precisely those reasons.

Lurking not far beneath the suggestion that most Canadians think it is reasonable for voters to have ID in their pockets on election day is the sense that only the “deserving” — the upright, respectable citizens — should be participating in our democracy.

There is racism just below the surface of the "Fair" Elections Act. This is the government which tore up the Kelowna Accord and treated Chief Theresa Spence with contempt.

Without a doubt, the Harperites are an ugly blast from the past.

Smelling A Skunk

Eric Grenier writes that, the more Canadians learn about the Fair Elections Act, the less they like it:

Opposition to the Conservative government's proposed Fair Elections Act (Bill C-23) is widespread and growing, according to a new poll by Angus Reid Global.

The survey, conducted online from April 14-15 and surveying 1,505 Canadians, found that 59 per cent of Canadians who said they were very or fairly familiar with the proposed legislation were opposed to it, an increase of three points since Angus Reid last polled Canadians on the topic in February.

Unfortunately, there is still a significant number of Canadians who haven't bothered to look into what the Harperites are selling:

Nevertheless, a majority of Canadians (69 per cent) said they were not familiar with the bill, including 27 per cent who said they had not heard of it before Angus Reid polled them. That did decrease by 11 points from February, however, as the number of people saying they were very familiar with the bill increased by three points to eight per cent, and the proportion who said they were fairly familiar jumped by eight points to 23 per cent.

There was an important difference in support for Bill C-23 between those who knew something about it and those who said they didn't. And why not? It is called the "Fair Elections Act" after all. Whereas just 41 per cent of Canadians who said they were familiar with the proposed legislation supported it, 52 per cent who said they knew little to nothing about it were in favour. 

And therein lies the rub. The government is depending on ignorance and apathy to finesse its future. But Tom Walkom warns that fixing Canadian democracy will take more than defeating the Fair Elections Act:

But the real problems of Canadian democracy are much deeper. They centre on the fact that, even without these new impediments to voting so few Canadians bother to cast ballots.

In 2011, only 61 per cent of those eligible to vote did so.

Harper’s Conservatives are right about one thing: Feel-good ads from Elections Canada won’t persuade non-voters to vote. People will vote only if they are inspired to do so, presumably by those seeking office.

And that will only happen when Canadians begin to smell a skunk in the woodpile.

Worshipping Ignorance And Greed

Michael Harris writes that Stephen Harper has a future -- in Arizona and several other Republican states:

In that state, voters must now present proof of citizenship before they can cast their ballots. It’s the same in Kansas. Like a lot of Republican states, Arizona claims the legislation is designed to battle massive voter fraud.

Except there has been no massive voter fraud, not in Arizona, not in Texas, not in Kansas, nowhere in the United States. The only fraud is the legislation itself, passed by nine Republican states since 2013 looking ahead to congressional elections, and ultimately to the presidential election of 2016.

It's clear from where and from whom Harper gets his inspiration. Republicans are primarily white and old -- and they are scared to death that their white picket fence America is changing. It's true that the Harperites have reached out to voters of colour. But, if they have one prime directive, it's to shut down people who don't see the world as they do -- even when the evidence is on their opponents' side.

Adam Shedletzky writes in The Tyee that the Conservatives' real opponent is reason:

They are quite literally daring opposition parties, the media and civil society to try and win this battle between rhetoric and reason. The likes of current, past and provincial chief electoral officers, the elections commissioner, the former auditor general, the former chair of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, non-partisan civil society organizations and hundreds of respected Canadian and international academics don't scare these guys.

With reason banished from the political landscape, it's much easier to worship the gods of Ignorance and Greed.

Time To Shut This Show Down

It was a remarkable display of arrogance. In yesterday's question period, Thomas Mulcair asked Stephen Harper if he would apologize for Pierre Poilivere's "cowardly and baseless attack" on Marc Mayrand. The prime minister rose, congratulated Philippe Couillard on his electoral victory and then sat down. And the barking seals honked and applauded.

It's clear that Mr. Harper believes he need not answer any questions -- from the Leader of the Opposition or any of the "self styled experts" who have criticized his so called "Fair" Elections Act.  Andrew Coyne writes:

Unable to answer its critics’ objections, the government has lately shifted into attacking their character. Mr. Poilievre told a Senate committee Tuesday the CEO, Marc Mayrand, is motivated by nothing but a desire for “more power, a bigger budget and less accountability.” The former Auditor General, Sheila Fraser, other government members hinted, was on the take: hadn’t she accepted payment to sit as co-chair of Elections Canada’s Advisory Board? The board’s other members, among them some of the country’s most widely respected political and legal figures, were dismissed by a Tory senator as “celebrities.” The provincial chief electoral officers, political scientists, law professors and other specialists who have denounced the bill were derided as “self-styled” experts. The only people, it would seem, with the integrity or the expertise to comment on the bill are the people who have drafted it to their own advantage.

There’s precedent for this, sadly. It is of a piece with the government’s previous attacks on the former parliamentary budget officer, Kevin Page, and the current Auditor General, Michael Ferguson. Like the CEO, their criticisms were dismissed as incompetent at best, partisan at worst — though, like the CEO, both were appointed by this government. This is more than a baseless smear on three conscientious public servants. It is an assault on their independence and authority as officers of Parliament.

Stephen Harper came to Ottawa to wreak vengeance -- first on the Liberal Party, then on civil servants, and finally on government itself. Even Mr. Harper's former director of communications, Geoff Norquay, has suggested that Mr. Harper is getting even for the "In and Out Affair."

Stephen Harper and his trained seals have been singing the same songs since opening night. Clearly, the time has come to shut this show down.

The Flim Flam Men

Listening to Pierre Poilievre defend the "Fair" Elections Act, you really have to ask yourself: Just who is this guy? He insists that voter fraud is a major problem. But Michael Harris writes that a report by Harry Neufeld concluded that voter fraud was virtually non existent in Canada. However,

in what will surely go down as one of the funniest spectacles in Canadian political history, Poilievre has been quoting from a report to defend Bill C-23 even after the author of the report said he has misread it. That said, Poilievre manfully insists that his interpretation of Neufeld’s report is correct; it’s the author who is wrong. Which leads to this fully-frontal absurdity: Pierre Poilievre, His Master’s Voice in this government, says that if Neufeld comes before the parliamentary committee studying Bill C-23, the minister will not be swayed by his testimony. But he will continue to cite the deluded man’s report to justify the government’s crackdown on non-existent voter fraud.

His position seems pretty clear. The truth is what I say it is. You cannot trust what other people say. You must trust me.

It's all of a piece for the man who Harris calls His Master's Voice. And it's all of a piece with the Orwellian title of the bill. Poilevre is a flim-flam man. The Harperites believe they make their own truth as they make their own reality.

They are all flim-flam men.

Alarm Bells Should Be Going Off

The Harperites didn't consult Marc Mayrand when they drew up their election "reforms." And there was a reason they did everything they could to prevent him from testifying before the parliamentary committee looking into those reforms.

But testify he did.  And, Andrew Coyne writes, he shredded the bill:

The chief electoral officer, in his quiet, workmanlike way, simply shredded it, almost line for line, proposing more than two dozen amendments that would effectively rewrite the bill.

The provision banning “vouching” came in for particularly heavy fire: while the government insists the practice, by which voters who lack proper identification can have another voter vouch for them, has given rise to widespread voter fraud, Mr. Mayrand observed there was no evidence for this. It did not help the government’s position that the authority it cited in response, Harry Neufeld, author of a report on electoral irregularities in the 2011 election, later backed up Mr. Mayrand’s stance. (“I never said there was voter fraud,” he told Canadian Press.)

As is the case with almost all Tory legislation, there is no evidence to support the changes they advocate. But putting Pierre Polievre in charge of the bill's passage is a clear signal:

Entrusting the matter to Pierre Poilievre, among the most ruthlessly partisan ministers in a government filled with ruthless partisans, was an early warning sign. Sure enough, not content with blindsiding the chief electoral officer, the minister — for Democratic Reform! — gave media and opposition members the merest sniff of the mammoth bill before thrusting it upon Parliament, where, after the usual curtailing of debate, it was packed off to committee, whose hearings will be likewise restricted (hence Mr. Christopherson’s filibuster). This is not how a government interested in fairness conducts itself.

And the changes to campaign contributions sends another clear signal:

The bill would raise the limits on both contributions and spending. All parties would benefit from this — needlessly: there’s never been so much money in our politics — but the Conservatives, as the most successful fundraisers, would plainly benefit most.

Coyne is right:

Perhaps each measure would not seem so troubling on its own; nor even would the whole if the government did not seem so intent on smuggling it into law. But as it is I think some alarm bells should really be going off.

Legislating Apathy

Yesterday, the Harper Party moved to limit debate on its so called Fair Elections Act. Three days, they said, is all it should take to debate the bill. The reason for the three day limit is abundantly clear: the longer the bill is exposed to sunlight,  the more its real intention becomes clear:

“A big part of this bill is about voter suppression,” NDP deputy leader David Christopherson told The Huffington Post Canada.

Young people, aboriginals and low-income Canadians are being unfairly targeted by a bill that the Conservatives have labelled the Fair Elections Act, the NDP argued.

Changes that eliminate being vouched for by a friend or colleague as sufficient identification on election day will hurt certain segments of the population who have no fixed address, such as those living on the street in Vancouver’s lower East side, said Libby Davies, the party’s MP for the area.

Another measure that prevents Elections Canada from continuing its current campaign of encouraging young people to vote is designed to keep anti-Tory voters away, Christopherson suggested.

“We’re talking about a lot of Canadians who might be the kind to look to the government to actually provide an improvement to our society. That is exactly the kind of Canadians [the Conservatives] want to keep away from the ballot box, because that is not the type of government that they offer,” he said.

And, to ensure that those objectives are met, Chief Electoral Officer Mark Mayrand says the Harperites have "taken the referee off the ice."

None of this should come as any surprise. Take a look at the players. Just as Julian Fantino is the Minister In Charge Of Abandoning Veterans, Pierre Poilievre is the Minister in Charge of Democratic Reform. Both men lack any credibility on their files. Of Poilievre, Lawrence Martin writes:

But if the young man with the bookworm looks and wicked tongue really wants to establish credibility as a minister of democratic reform, there’s another way of doing it. He could start by lowering some stone walls. Since he’s so concerned about the work of Elections Canada, he might lend a hand with its robocalls probe.

But Poilievre won't do that, of course. The Conservatives are all about building walls --- "firewalls" is the prime minister's phrase. The best way to do that -- and maintain power with 30% support -- is to make sure that those who would vote against you don't show up at the polls.

And you can make it happen -- or not happen -- by legislating apathy.