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Democracy is Dead in Canada

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To almost everyone’s surprise in mid-August, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a snap election for seats in the nation’s Parliament. Few Americans at the time knew that our neighbor to the north engages in the vile game of voter suppression. Now we’re beginning to find out, and it’s an outrage!

I can’t label it Jim Crow on steroids because it’s Canada. Maybe Paul Bunyan on meth? Mo Eskimo on kerosene? Whatever you choose to call it, it demands some serious virtue signaling from woke folks everywhere.

Trudeau picked September 20 as election day. That makes the campaign season the shortest possible under Canadian law—plainly a devious plot to catch opposition parties off guard and limit the time they can get their acts together. This threatens the very foundations of democracy itself. How mortifying!

But that’s chump loonies compared to the ghastly hardship with which Ottawa burdens the act of casting a ballot. If you thought Georgia was electoral purgatory, with its measly 17 days of early voting, check this out from the official Elections Canada website:

If you’re a Canadian who wants to vote early, you had but four days to do so. That’s right, only four—September 10, 11, 12 or 13. This was undoubtedly calculated to disadvantage the poor and the handicapped. How about Inuits in the far north whose dog sleds need more time to get to the nearest polling place in a snowstorm? It’s probably racist too, though don’t ask me why; I’m just tossing that in for good measure.

Voting by mail-in ballot in the upcoming election requires one to navigate a minefield of democracy-killing obstacles. First, you had to apply by the arbitrary deadline of September 14. To add insult to injury, you must return your ballot by 6:00 pm on Election Day. Not 6:05 pm, not 7:00 pm, not even two weeks later! This is suppression, unadulterated. Deeply offensive stuff.

And get this—no ballot harvesting! If Wayne Gretzky shows up in your driveway with a trunk full of ballots, promising to deliver them to a polling station, you are not allowed to toss your ballot in there. No way.

Requiring any form of identification as a voting condition is a dead give-away for racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, speciesism, and what-not. It isn’t a problem when it comes to boarding a plane, purchasing booze, getting a job, buying a gun or a house, cashing a check at a Tim Horton’s, sponsoring a protest rally, giving blood, applying for a fishing or hunting or driver’s license, renting a room at the No-Tell Motel, visiting a casino, getting married, or picking up some nail polish at a Walgreen’s. But proving who you are at the ballot box is a burdensome insult. Voter i.d. is voter suppression!

Do our “progressive” northern friends foist identification mandates on voters? Yes! Inexplicably, they do. Perhaps they never got the Stacey Abrams memo.

To vote, Canadians must produce a driver’s license or another government-issued photo i.d. If they possess neither, then they must provide two other documents such as a bank statement, library card or a utility bill. If they have none of those, then there’s only one additional option: They must declare their identity and address in writing and have another Canadian vouch for them. That person can’t be just any hockey puck off the street. The rules say he or she (or whatever pronoun applies) must be “someone who knows you and who is assigned to your polling station.”

How shameful! The Canadians might just as well toss the Queen, ditch their Constitution and declare themselves a theocratic despotism.

I am beside myself with dismay and grief. Democracy is dead in Canada. How much longer can it possibly survive here?

Call your Canadian friends and urge them to make voting so simple and effortless that no one would even think of stealing an election (wink)!

Lawrence writes a weekly op-ed for El American. He is President Emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in Atlanta, Georgia; and is the author of “Real heroes: inspiring true stories of courage, character, and conviction“ and the best-seller “Was Jesus a Socialist?“ //
Lawrence escribe un artículo de opinión semanal para El American. Es presidente emérito de la Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) en Atlanta, Georgia; y es el autor de “Héroes reales: inspirando historias reales de coraje, carácter y convicción” y el best-seller “¿Fue Jesús un socialista?”

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