The Fair Elections (A.K.A. Harper's Contempt For Democracy) Act: Star Readers and Creekside Weigh In

It is always heartening to awake on a Monday morning, peruse the newspaper, and receive confirmation that concerns over the Harper Fair Elections Act are not the exclusive concern of the blogosphere. That being said, I strongly recommend that you visit Alison at Creekside to read her analysis of this odious bill.

As well, savor these missives from Toronto Star readers:

Elections bill could disenfranchise thousands, Feb. 7

Typical of the Harper government’s obsession with control, they propose to create a new bureaucracy with the apparent sole purpose of bringing the currently independent investigative powers under the political influence of a government minister. Why else would you avoid the logical, and probably more cost effective, route of simply enhancing the existing powers of Elections Canada, the acknowledged “expert” in administering Canada’s election laws and regulations?
The ability to exert government (political) influence over enforcement and investigations of possible abuses of electoral law is the only apparent benefit of Stephen Harper’s approach.

Interesting also that, while they propose tougher rules to prevent abuse by individual voters, they promote “one law for you and another for the insiders” by providing new cover, out of the public view, for suspected abusers of the electoral system at the party and elected levels. This can only lead to a public perception that cover-ups of transgressions are likely as the insiders look after one another.

Leave it to Harper to subvert one more thing to his anti-democratic, dictatorial bent.

Terry Kushnier, Scarborough

Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre says he wants “everyday citizens in charge of democracy.” Really? The per-vote subsidy allowed all voters, regardless of wealth, to allocate a small amount of public funding to parties they supported. By scrapping that and increasing the individual donation limit by 25 per cent, the fraction of voters who direct public subsidies to political parties shrinks to about 1 to 2 per cent of all voters, with the biggest donors among them directing the biggest subsidies.

We’re on the wrong track. But before you blame a party or parties you don’t like as the source of the problem, recognize that all parties have an obvious conflict of interest with law-making on political funding.

We need an independent citizens’ assembly to tackle this. While it may not be clear what such a body might decide, it would certainly be more democratic and fair than the partisan-designed mess we have now.

Larry Gordon, Toronto

The “Fair Elections Act” recently tabled by the federal government is good, bad and sad. Good because it is not buried in a giant Omnibus Bill and contains many positive reforms. Bad because it appears that the chief electoral officer was not consulted on the details and, on the surface of it, Elections Canada will be lacking some powers to investigate. Sad because political parties have played fast and loose with our democratic rights to such an extent that our government feels compelled to call it a “Fair Elections Act.”

Bill Wensley, Cobourg