Saturday, March 31, 2012

Election Fever

Alberta is in the middle of an election campaign. Near as I can tell the question is whether Albertans will give the Progressive Conservative Party a majority or an overwhelming majority. Or perhaps vote Wildrose and shift the province to the right, ending a 41-year PC dynasty.

But I have to sit this one out. For the first time in my adult life, I find myself unable to vote. Not because I can't decide which candidate to support. It's because the Alberta Elections Act defines an elector in section 1(1)(j) as "a Canadian citizen, [who] is 18 years of age or older and is, and has been for at least the immediately preceding 6 months, ordinarily resident in Alberta." (emphasis added) Since we just moved here three months ago, that last bit means that we don't meet the residency requirement. So we find ourselves disenfranchised.

Alberta will pay for me to receive medical care. Alberta will certify my fitness to operate a motor-vehicle, and license said vehicle to be driven on public roads. Alberta will even happily collect taxes from me, retroactive to January 2011. But let me vote? Nope. :-(

And, lest this seem like Alberta-bashing, because it really isn't intended to be, let me point out that the same is true in almost all of the rest of the country. With the exceptions of Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador, it seems, every other province in Canada requires 6 months' residency before you can vote in a provincial election. It's just the luck of the draw that the writ was dropped before we were here for six months. And I imagine we're far from the only Canadians living in Alberta who can't vote in this election.

Maybe once the dust has settled, and we know which leader's campaign bus has taken her to victory, the legislature should revisit that six-month waiting period for voting. And not just the Alberta legislature, but the legislatures of all the other provinces that still deny the vote to newcomers.

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