The Gregorians had it all wrong when they put the beginning of the new year in January. September truly feels like the first month of the year. By then, vacations are over, along with the fiscal year for some businesses (like ad agencies), school begins, and people slowly shake off the summer laziness.
By now, a month into the 'New Year,' life has picked up where it left off before the summer. At work, I'm juggling several projects with looming deadlines. Money must be saved and preparations made for the coming Canada trip. There's an urgency to drink patio beers and partake in outdoor activities before winter becomes a reality.
In the midst of this, a Canadian election is scheduled for October 19, and there is one thing I wanted to ensure I made time for.
Casting my Voting as an Expat
As a someone who has lived outside of Canada for less than five years, I am happily still able to vote. I applied for my voting kit (which meant simply sending a scan of my passport and my address to Elections Canada) and cast my vote today (by mail).
It's an interesting process. I didn't tick a box for a candidate; I write in the name of the candidate. Then I put the ballot into a little envelope. Then I took that little envelope and put it into another envelope, which I signed and dated. Then I put it into another envelope, which is the mailing envelope. It felt more like putting together a lickable Matryoshka doll than voting.
Nevertheless, I miss voting in person, not for the ease of it – although licking my way through the voting kit was a little weird. It's a comforting ritual to walk in the polling station, mark an X beside my candidate, and drop it into the ballot box.
Elections Canada made this process very easy for me, but it's startling to see that only 6,000 Canadians out of maybe 2.8 million living outside of Canada cast a vote.
It's startling, but somewhat understandable. I didn't know I could vote from abroad, and I've always made a point of voting, but a similar ignorance might keeps expats away. Or a perception that it's difficult (which it isn't). Or old fashioned indifference (not unlikely).
Exercising my right this way might not last long. A court struck down Canadian citizens' right to vote if they've been living elsewhere for over five years. The court's decision was rooted in the argument that expat's votes would upset the social contract between the government and current residents in Canada.
I understand that argument, but to me that means the system should be tweaked just a bit.
My Parliamentary Expat Reform Bill
My suggestion? Expats should get our own Member of Parliament. Just because we've been away for a while doesn't mean we don't have ties to Canada (property, investments, family, citizenship) or that we never intend to return.
Having our own MP would attract more voters and bring a different perspective. We're copywriters in Germany, teachers in Indonesia, and hockey players in the United States. Where we live shouldn't invalidate us from making an informed decision – we are still Canadian citizens, after all.
Recently, Prime Minister Harper has proposed more changes. Mostly, it would make it difficult to vote from afar. Rather than emailing a scan of my passport, I would have to get someone to vouch for me that I am from the riding that I intend to vote in.
There is a pattern here. In the last election, mysterious robocalls sent voters to the wrong polling stations. A new law that should have countered this instead instituted rigorous identification procedures for voting. The stated purpose was stopping people from voting more than once, but it merely succeeded in making it more difficult for students, pensioners, and the homeless to vote. Budget cuts to Elections Canada and for voting advocacy have not helped either.
This obfuscation of the democratic process is shameful enough, but it's not the only problem. Voter turnout was only around 60% in Canada.
It's so disheartening to see people throw away their vote by not voting. yes, the country's and the world's problems can seem so daunting that our vote seems like it won't make a difference. But it's also so ridiculously easy (for now) that there's no reason why we all shouldn't give it a shot.
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