Tuesday, November 27, 2001

OTTAWA - Today, on the first anniversary of the 2000 federal election, and as Elections Canada releases its legislative reform proposal report, Democracy Watch launched its new Voter Rights Campaign.

The Voter Rights Campaign aims to change Canada's voting system to ensure representative, elected, and honest government. Hand-in-hand with Democracy Watch's current Money in Politics Campaign, which aims to democratize Canada's political finance system, and Government Ethics Campaign, which aims to strengthen ethics rules and enforcement, the Voter Rights Campaign sets out measures that will make Canada's governments more citizen-owned and citizen-driven.

"Canada's current voting system and federal government structure effectively violate the fundamental democratic principles of one-person, one-vote, representation by population, and free and fair elections" said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch. "Many changes are needed to have a voting system and government that respects the rights of voters to have their votes count equally, and to have representative, elected and honest government."

Among the undemocratic aspects of the current voting system and federal government structure are as follows: one political party usually forms a majority government after winning support from only a minority of voters; the Senate is appointed, not elected; and political parties and governments can make fraudulent and misleading statements with no accountability.

Democracy Watch's Voter Rights Campaign calls on all Canadian governments, especially the federal government, to enact the following measures:

• change the voting system, and federal Senate structure, to provide a more accurate representation of the popular vote and regional interests in the House of Commons, the Senate, and provincial legislatures (as in many other countries);
• create a right to refuse to cast a ballot, and require election commissions to report how many Canadians do so (so voters can, if they want to, send a clear message that they do not support any of the candidates or political parties);
• create a right to complain at any time to election commmissions about false or fraudulent advertising or statements by governments, political parties, and third parties, and give election commissions the power to penalize violators (as in B.C., and similar to the existing right to complain about false advertising or fraud by businesses);
• restrict government advertising leading up to an election, except in emergencies or for administrative reasons (as in Saskatchewan and Manitoba);
• all public officials involved in overseeing elections, and setting electoral riding boundaries, should be non-partisan and independent of the party in power;
• put in place an open, arms-length and merit-based process for government appointments and awarding of contracts; and
• all government consultation processes should provide meaningful opportunities for citizen participation, especially concerning decisions that affect the lives of all Canadians (as proposed in a June 2001 federal Industry Committee report, and in draft federal guidelines (still to be finalized by Treasury Board).

"Many Canadian governments are unrepresentative, dishonest and too unaccountable" said Conacher. "Canadians deserve to have changes made so that their democratic rights are respected and Canadian governments become truly citizen-owned and citizen-driven."

A discussion paper on voting reform and Action Alert has been posted on Democracy Watch's Voter Rights Campaign webpage.