Calling changes to Canada’s election laws “profoundly anti-democratic” the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Federation of Students, and three individual electors are turning to the Ontario Superior Court to challenge the changes made this past June.
They suggest amendments to the elections laws made this past spring in the Fair Elections Act Bill “infringe on Canadians’ right to vote and equality rights as guaranteed by Sections 3 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
“The measures being challenged are profoundly anti-democratic,” said Garry Neil, Executive Director of the Council of Canadians in a statement released Thursday (October 9). “… the government has legislated rules that will make it impossible for certain citizens to exercise their right to vote and next to impossible for citizens to challenge election results that may have been fraudulently obtained.”
“Canadian youth and students are already disengaging from democratic processes they often regard as inaccessible and unaccountable,” said Jessica McCormick, National Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students in a press release. “This Act constructs additional barriers between young Canadians and their right to vote.”
When the ruling Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper used its majority in the House of Commons to pass the Fair Elections Act (Bill C-23) it said the changes would eliminate voter fraud and control election campaign spending, but the opposition parties said the legislation would take the vote away from hundreds of thousands of Canadians, open loopholes in election spending, and clear the way for the government to win in the federal election in 2015.
More information:
CBC News – Council of Canadians going to court to fight election law changes – here
Press release – Fair Elections Act: Canadian democracy will have its day in court – here
RCI – Despite protests, controversy, government uses majority to pass Fair Elections Act – here
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