Democracy and the right to vote Flashcards
Frank v Canada (SCC, 2019)
This is case decided by the Supreme Court of Canada
Re: the voting rights of expatriate Canadians.
Result: The majority in the 5–2 decision struck down a passage in the Canada Elections Act which had limited the right to vote to “a person who has been absent from Canada for less than five consecutive years and who intends to return to Canada as a resident”.
Wikipedia: “Those who returned to visit Canada within the five-year limit had this time reset, so that those who frequently returned to visit Canada maintained the right to vote from abroad. After Stephen Harper’s government came to power in 2006, it began strictly enforcing the five-year limit, so that it never reset for those who visited Canada.
The provisions in the act were challenged by Canadian citizens Gillian Frank and Jamie Duong. Both worked at universities in the United States, as they could not find suitable work in Canada. When they found they could not vote in the 2011 Canadian federal election,[2] they pursued a case.
The Justin Trudeau government introduced the Elections Modernization Act shortly before the Supreme Court’s decision; the legislation restored expatriate voting rights, but left open whether future governments could take them away again.[”
Sauve V Canada, SCC 2002
Wikipedia Summary:
Sauvé v Canada (Chief Electoral Officer), [2002] 3 SCR 519 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision where the Court held that prisoners have a right to vote under section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court overturned the prior decision of the Federal Court of Appeal and held that section 51(e) of the old Canada Elections Act, which prohibited prisoners serving a sentence of over two years from voting, was unconstitutional. Section 51(e) had been repealed before the date of the Court’s judgment, but the decision applied equally to section 4(c) of the new statute, which was substantially the same. The Court ruled that the provision violated section 3 of the Charter and was not a reasonable limit under section 1.
As a result of the decision, all adult citizens living in Canada are now able to vote, save the top two officials of Elections Canada.[1] Relevant sections of the Canada Elections Act was amended in 2018[2] as part of the Elections Modernization Act.
