Electiosn Act prohibits foreign opinion on Canadian politics?
As the 2011 federal election has entered its final two weeks, the Green Party is rushing to put out a brush fire started by some well-meaning Australian Greens.
A YouTube video, entitled "Sydney, Australia to Sidney, BC" has surfaced, in which members of the Australian Green Party endorse Green Party leader Elizabeth May in Saanich-Gulf Islands.
To most Canadians, something like this would barely raise an eyebrow. But according to Elections Canada, this is actually unlawful under the Elections Act. Under section 331 of the Elections Act: "No person who does not reside in Canada shall, during an election period, in any way induce electors to vote or refrain from voting . . . for a particular candidate unless the person is (a) a Canadian citizen; or (b) a permanent resident."
The Green Party should be commended for its efforts to ensure their international supporters respect the Elections Act. But, quite frankly, not only is Section 331 the most unenforcable law ever written, it's also grossly unconstitutional -- in numerous countries.
What Section 331 basically states is that if anyone who is not a citizen of Canada has an opinion on who should win a Canadian election, they are to keep it to themselves. Not only is that a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it's also a violation of such freedoms anywhere else that they are legally-entrenched.
So how would Elections Canada go about enforcing this law? The simple fact of the matter is that they can't. They have no authority to tread into foreign countries and charge their citizens under Canadian law.
Perhaps foreign citizens shouldn't endorse candidates in Canadian elections. But that's a matter of opinion.
Section 331 needs to be struck from the Elections Act at the earliest opportunity.
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Monday, April 18, 2011
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Total War... It's Hard on the Kids
Apparently "young adult invasion" is actually considered a literary genre in some corners.
Written by John Marsden, Tomorrow: When the War Began is a novel, set in Australia, pitting a band of teenagers against professional soldiers for the control of Australia.
The film opens in very WB-esque fashion, with Ellie Linton (Caitlin Stasey) and six firends camping in a secluded corner of Australia. Upon returning to their homes, they find their families missing, the power shut off, and the phone lines dead.
In time, they learn the harrowing truth: Australia has been invaded by "the Coalition", a group of Asian countries (which may or may not include China). Their families are being held in internment camps.
They eventually learn via radio broadcasts that the Coalition has invaded Australia for its territory. They eventually conclude they really have only one option: fight back.
It's a remarkably similar scenario to that presented in Red Dawn: one in which an ordinary day at school is suddenly interrupted by the landing of Soviet paratroopers in the schoolyard. The mid-western United States has been overrun by a communist invasion.
Former football hero Jed (Patrick Swayze) lead a rag-tag collection of teenagers to become a battle-hardened guerilla unit.
Throughout each film, the horrors of the war take a deep psychological toll on the youths. In Tomorrow, Ellie nearly kills stoner Chris Lang (Andy Ryan) when he falls asleep while he's supposed to be keeping watch for Coalition patrols. In Red Dawn, Robert (C Thomas Howell) sends the surviving members of their unit -- those not killed by enemy action or killed for betraying their friends -- back across allied lines without himself and Jed, noting that the two of them are "all used up".
In Tomorrow and Red Dawn each group has at least enjoyed the benefit of ever having had the opportunity to be kids. Many of the youths involved in total wars today are not nearly so fortunate.
Total war, of course, is the condition of all-encompassing warfare between two groups. Throughout Africa, many ongoing civil wars -- including the ongoing conflict in Libya -- are total wars. There is no real distinction between combatants and non-combatants: everyone is a target.
The psychological effect of total war on children is undeniably striking. But if the west thinks that total war is only an issue in the most remote reaches of Africa, they're wrong.
There are forces waging total war against the western world today, and they very much are recruiting their own children in their war against the west. Al Qaida and the Taliban have press-ganged young girls into cells of suicide bombers. In Pakistan, "suicide bomber" has become a children's game.
These cells of child terrorists can't strike at the west in our backyards -- just yet. In the meantime, Al Qaida and the Taliban have settled for using these suicide bombers to target and intimidate their own people.
Just imagine what the total war Al Qaida and the Taliban are waging against civilized values are doing to those children.
Regardless of whether the war would actually be fought on US soil, Australian soil, in Africa, or in Afghanistan and Pakistan, total war is always hard on the kids.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Stephen Harper is Right, or, Senate Reform or Bust
If the Senate can’t be democratized, then it does have to go
Apparently, Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn’t have to do or say much in order to provoke a controversy these days.
Lately, it’s taken no more than a single line of a single speech.
While addressing the Australian parliament on Tuesday, Harper discussed the success of Senate reform in Australia, and addressed Canada’s case of “Senate envy”.
“I can’t help but notice, however, that you have done a much better job than us with at least one of our Westminster institutions, the Upper House,” Harper announced. “As one Canadian political scientist I know likes to say, when we look at Australia, we suffer from ‘Senate envy.’”
“In Canada, Senators remain appointed, not elected,” Harper explained. “They don’t have to retire until age 75, and may warm their seats for as long as 45 years. By the nature of the system, they’re not accountable to voters. So it’s a rare pleasure for me to be among Senators who are actually elected by the people they represent.”
“The mandate to govern,” he concluded, “when it is given to you directly by the people, is a great honour and a great responsibility. It’s the very essence of responsible government, and it is the minimum condition of 21st century democracy. Australia’s Senate shows how a reformed Upper House can function in our parliamentary system and Canadians understand that our Senate, as it stands today, must either change or, like the old Upper Houses of our provinces, vanish.”
And while some individuals are falling all over themselves to denounce Harper for musing about abolishing the Senate – and let’s keep in mind that one well-qualified line of one speech certainly doesn’t comprise a commitment to Senate abolition in any way, shape or form – what they really want is to draw attention away from the fact that Harper and the Conservative party are absolutely, 100% right about Senate reform.
That is, that if the Senate cannot be reformed, it must be abolished.
There are even those who, predictably, want to portray this particular line as threatening – as a sign of autocratic tendencies.
Unsurprisingly, these people have resorted to their typical needle-in-haystack searches, resorting to their time-honoured tactic of focusing on minutiae in order to invent a fictional set of Conservative party policies that never existed.
Yet many of them have been conveniently silent about the NDP’s opposition to any form of Senate reform – they favour outright abolition as their option of first choice. And while that certainly says something about the nature of the NDP (perhaps they’re the ones who really have a hidden agenda), it says even more about those who are currently trying to raise a stink regarding Stephen Harper flirting with abolition as an option of last resort.
Apparently, abolishing the Senate is a perfectly palatable idea so long as it’s “Jack Layton and the NDP” who are proposing it, but becomes immediately intolerable the instant that Stephen Harper utters a single word about it.
This isn’t to say that abolishing the Senate is a good idea. But the valuable role that the Senate can fill in Canadian society (and arguably hasn’t throughout at least the past 30 years) only underscores the need for real Senate reform.
This shouldn’t be confused with Louis St. Laurent’s idea of Senate reform, which was to replace retiring Conservative senators exclusively with “good Liberals”. But it’s in consideration of historical stances like Laurent’s that one begins to wonder why it is that the very concept of Senate reform seems so threatening to Liberals.
Then again, as the predominant hegemonic party of modern Canadian political history, the Liberal party has certainly found itself a fun toy in the Canadian Senate, and they certainly don’t seem prepared to give it up. Even when they pay lip service to the idea of Senate reform (as does Stephane Dion), one also has to remember that they oppose any form of Senate reform that would upset the not-so-delicate balance of Liberal hegemony over the upper house.
Abolition is the only tenable alternative to permanent Liberal hegemony over Canadian politics via the Senate. The sheer effort exerted by the Liberals in holding the government hostage in recent months only underscores this.
It’s for this reason alone that Stephane Dion needs to stop simply saying he’s in favour of senate reform – he needs to back up his words, and get behind it. Even if he doesn’t want to support the current proposals on the table – although they’re perfectly reasonable, and will take the Senate light-years toward becoming an actual democratic body – then perhaps he should act like a leader of the Opposition, and formulate his own set of proposals (the goal of the opposition, of course, being to present itself as a viable alternative government).
Yet Stephane Dion and his supporters seem all to consent to live in glass houses and throw stones. When Harper suggests that the Senate should be abolished if it can’t be reformed, they insist it’s because he’s despotic and abhors any kind of opposition, if not an outright sense that they are entitled to permanently govern, even while in opposition.
Whereas the Liberal insistence that the Liberal-dominated Senate is just fine the way it is (quelle suprise!) seems actually despotic, and borne of a sense of contempt regarding the opposition.
This, when one considers that a recent poll has revealled that 79% of polled Canadians were in favour of electing senators, seems all the more out of pace with Canada’s current political realities.
One also has to keep in mind that 12 citizen’s forums held across Canada has noted that Canadians are not in form of senate abolition. In fact, many citizens participating in the forums remarked on the value of the Senate as “checks and balances” on the power of parliament.
Yet in recent years, the Senate has not acted as a check or a balance on parliament when it mattered (as with the implementation of the National Energy Program, or the establishment of arbitrary moritariums on tainted blood claims), and has only tried to be so when it didn’t matter (as with the recent federal budget).
The case is clear: the Senate has not acted as it should, and not only is a reformed Senate necessary, but the Canadian people support it.
If the Liberal party won’t recognize the political will of the Canadian people, perhaps it’s time to take their toy away from them for good.
Apparently, Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn’t have to do or say much in order to provoke a controversy these days.
Lately, it’s taken no more than a single line of a single speech.
While addressing the Australian parliament on Tuesday, Harper discussed the success of Senate reform in Australia, and addressed Canada’s case of “Senate envy”.
“I can’t help but notice, however, that you have done a much better job than us with at least one of our Westminster institutions, the Upper House,” Harper announced. “As one Canadian political scientist I know likes to say, when we look at Australia, we suffer from ‘Senate envy.’”
“In Canada, Senators remain appointed, not elected,” Harper explained. “They don’t have to retire until age 75, and may warm their seats for as long as 45 years. By the nature of the system, they’re not accountable to voters. So it’s a rare pleasure for me to be among Senators who are actually elected by the people they represent.”
“The mandate to govern,” he concluded, “when it is given to you directly by the people, is a great honour and a great responsibility. It’s the very essence of responsible government, and it is the minimum condition of 21st century democracy. Australia’s Senate shows how a reformed Upper House can function in our parliamentary system and Canadians understand that our Senate, as it stands today, must either change or, like the old Upper Houses of our provinces, vanish.”
And while some individuals are falling all over themselves to denounce Harper for musing about abolishing the Senate – and let’s keep in mind that one well-qualified line of one speech certainly doesn’t comprise a commitment to Senate abolition in any way, shape or form – what they really want is to draw attention away from the fact that Harper and the Conservative party are absolutely, 100% right about Senate reform.
That is, that if the Senate cannot be reformed, it must be abolished.
There are even those who, predictably, want to portray this particular line as threatening – as a sign of autocratic tendencies.
Unsurprisingly, these people have resorted to their typical needle-in-haystack searches, resorting to their time-honoured tactic of focusing on minutiae in order to invent a fictional set of Conservative party policies that never existed.
Yet many of them have been conveniently silent about the NDP’s opposition to any form of Senate reform – they favour outright abolition as their option of first choice. And while that certainly says something about the nature of the NDP (perhaps they’re the ones who really have a hidden agenda), it says even more about those who are currently trying to raise a stink regarding Stephen Harper flirting with abolition as an option of last resort.
Apparently, abolishing the Senate is a perfectly palatable idea so long as it’s “Jack Layton and the NDP” who are proposing it, but becomes immediately intolerable the instant that Stephen Harper utters a single word about it.
This isn’t to say that abolishing the Senate is a good idea. But the valuable role that the Senate can fill in Canadian society (and arguably hasn’t throughout at least the past 30 years) only underscores the need for real Senate reform.
This shouldn’t be confused with Louis St. Laurent’s idea of Senate reform, which was to replace retiring Conservative senators exclusively with “good Liberals”. But it’s in consideration of historical stances like Laurent’s that one begins to wonder why it is that the very concept of Senate reform seems so threatening to Liberals.
Then again, as the predominant hegemonic party of modern Canadian political history, the Liberal party has certainly found itself a fun toy in the Canadian Senate, and they certainly don’t seem prepared to give it up. Even when they pay lip service to the idea of Senate reform (as does Stephane Dion), one also has to remember that they oppose any form of Senate reform that would upset the not-so-delicate balance of Liberal hegemony over the upper house.
Abolition is the only tenable alternative to permanent Liberal hegemony over Canadian politics via the Senate. The sheer effort exerted by the Liberals in holding the government hostage in recent months only underscores this.
It’s for this reason alone that Stephane Dion needs to stop simply saying he’s in favour of senate reform – he needs to back up his words, and get behind it. Even if he doesn’t want to support the current proposals on the table – although they’re perfectly reasonable, and will take the Senate light-years toward becoming an actual democratic body – then perhaps he should act like a leader of the Opposition, and formulate his own set of proposals (the goal of the opposition, of course, being to present itself as a viable alternative government).
Yet Stephane Dion and his supporters seem all to consent to live in glass houses and throw stones. When Harper suggests that the Senate should be abolished if it can’t be reformed, they insist it’s because he’s despotic and abhors any kind of opposition, if not an outright sense that they are entitled to permanently govern, even while in opposition.
Whereas the Liberal insistence that the Liberal-dominated Senate is just fine the way it is (quelle suprise!) seems actually despotic, and borne of a sense of contempt regarding the opposition.
This, when one considers that a recent poll has revealled that 79% of polled Canadians were in favour of electing senators, seems all the more out of pace with Canada’s current political realities.
One also has to keep in mind that 12 citizen’s forums held across Canada has noted that Canadians are not in form of senate abolition. In fact, many citizens participating in the forums remarked on the value of the Senate as “checks and balances” on the power of parliament.
Yet in recent years, the Senate has not acted as a check or a balance on parliament when it mattered (as with the implementation of the National Energy Program, or the establishment of arbitrary moritariums on tainted blood claims), and has only tried to be so when it didn’t matter (as with the recent federal budget).
The case is clear: the Senate has not acted as it should, and not only is a reformed Senate necessary, but the Canadian people support it.
If the Liberal party won’t recognize the political will of the Canadian people, perhaps it’s time to take their toy away from them for good.
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