Elections Canada position
on 'faceless voting' undermines electoral integrity and equality before
the ballot box
For Immediate Release-David
Harris, Senior Fellow for National Security Canadian Coalition for
Democracies
September 6, 2007
Ottawa, Canada – The Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD)
regards as unconscionable Elections Canada’s reported new policy
of allowing Muslim women to wear identity-concealing face veils, including
full burqas, when voting in upcoming federal by-elections in Quebec
and Ontario. Canada’s federal elections’ regulator says
Muslim women can “vote veiled” merely by identifying themselves
with a driver’s licence and second piece of identification. As
an alternative, “covered” women need only swear an oath
and have another voter vouch for them.
Outbursts of public condemnation overturned a similar initiative earlier
this year by Quebec's Election Commission. The Commission was forced
to reverse its consent to “burqa voting” when offended Quebec
citizens and public interest groups threatened civil disobedience
at election time. Highlighting the problem of double standards and
arbitrariness, voters promised to attend polls with their faces covered
by paper bags, sheets, hockey masks and other head coverings, and
to assert “sensitivity” and special religious privilege
as their justification for doing so.
"Elections Canada’s initiative violates the basic premise
of public voting in Canada and the principle of equality of all Canadians
before the ballot box. It is an invitation to fraud, misrepresentation
and the debasing of our democratic electoral system," said David
Harris, CCD Senior Fellow for National Security.
Beyond the ballot box, religious face coverings have at times been
misused in Canada and around the world to facilitate fraud and other
criminal acts. Veiling has been used abroad to advance terrorist operations,
including suicide bombings. Such risks compelled France to ban the
burqa in certain public spheres, and the Netherlands’ government
- among others - is considering doing the same. And last fall in Quebec,
ADQ leader Mario Dumont went beyond the ballot box issue, stating
that he did not “rule out the possibility of laws … to make
illegal the wearing of the burqa.” Yet some of Canada’s
elites, apparently unfazed by the threat to electoral integrity and
public safety, appear helpless in the face of radical lobbying in
the name of “accommodation”.
"Canadians call upon Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Opposition
leaders Stephane Dion, Gilles Duceppe, and Jack Layton, to demand
an end to Elections Canada’s ill-considered policy of diminished
electoral scrutiny for one religious group," said Harris.
"Government must promote one secular law for all, and an end
to the appeasing of radical fundamentalism in whatever guise - or
disguise."
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For more information, please contact
David Harris, Senior Fellow for National Security
Canadian Coalition for Democracies
613-233-1220
