Over the course of the weekend, I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Frank v. Canada (Attorney General), 2019 SCC 1 – the decision about expat voting rights – and I still can’t bring myself to conclude that they the majority got it right. I’ve read over the decision and found myself greatly annoyed by the fact that majority simply shrugged off the very real issue of constituencies and local elections, and that in his concurring reasons, Justice Rowe mentioned them but shrugged them off. And while people will criticise the reasoning and analysis employed by the dissent from Justices Coté and Brown, they at least did pay particular and necessary attention to the issue of constituencies as it relates to our system – and the rationale for the five-year limit (in that it is the constitutional maximum length of a single parliament). And I can’t let this go, because five of seven justices of the Supreme Court failed to properly understand the importance of constituency-based democracy (and I think the Attorney General’s office also bears a particular amount of responsibility for not making the case adequately either).

To reiterate – we vote for local representatives. We don’t vote for parties, or party leaders, no matter what we may have in mind when we go into the ballot box – we mark the X for the local candidate, end of story. For an expat, it’s not the connection to Canada that should be at issue – it’s the connection to the riding, because that’s how we allocate our votes. The dissenting judges got that, but the majority and virtually all of the commentary I’ve seen on the matter ignored it, despite it being the first principle of our electoral system. The Attorney General focused on the “social contract,” which the majority decision hewed to, and there was a lot of talk about feelings and “progressive enfranchisement,” but feelings are not how we allocate votes in this country. Ridings are, and as warm and fuzzy as you feel about Canada, it’s the riding that ultimately matters. I feel like we’re rewarding civic illiteracy on a grand scale with this decision.

To that end, here’s Leonid Sirota offering his analysis of the decision, and University of Ottawa law professor Mike Pal’s thoughts in this thread. And here’s Emmett Macfarlane to pick apart the decision further (though we will disagree on the outcome).

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1083740974008815617

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1083743192225177601

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1083744829278871552

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1083745335044755456

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1083747918736023552

Good reads:

• The Cabinet shuffle rumour mill places Jane Philpott in Treasury Board and Seamus O’Regan in Indigenous Services.
• The young Saudi woman Canada granted asylum too arrived on Saturday morning, and was met at the airport by Chrystia Freeland.
• Apparently “informal” talks with the UK have been going ahead, aimed at a trade deal once Brexit happens. Canada may be their “fallback” in a no-deal Brexit.
• The government has been consulting on how to reform the system on dealing with unclaimed bank accounts and pension funds.
• Apparently the Bank of Canada considered including a reference to Black Lives Matter on the new vertical $10 note featuring Viola Desmond.
• MPs on the Commons ethics committee want to study Estonia’s use of online services for government – as well as the privacy implicaitons.
• The Conservatives are tapping former MP Tim Uppal as their point-man in Alberta.
• Jagmeet Singh and Thomas Mulcair are sniping about the state of the NDP, and Singh’s command (or lack thereof) of the issues.
• The Quebec provincial long-gun registry is set to go into effect, but it looks like most people still haven’t registered their firearms.

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