In the wake of the Liberal landslide of yesterday’s provincial election, as it turns out, not everyone was able to exercise their right to vote–enough to spark one person to create the Disenfranchised in Quebec blog, and other’s harrowing stories made the news.
Most notably were five McGill students whom, even after providing utility bills and tax records, were denied the right to vote and ended up bringing it to court.
Out of the five, only one was given the chance to vote. Brendan Edge, a candidate in his riding for the Green Party, was initially denied the right to vote amongst a good deal of outrage. He ended up lucky, or rather, subject to a convenient conundrum: given the right to run a candidate, and yet not given the right to vote. However, four others met no success, for some fairly technical sounding reasons.
The ruling was based off of “domicile”, a term which has caused more than a bit of confusion. In the Electoral Act, the definition of a qualified elector includes that one “(1) has attained 18 years of age” and “(3) has been domiciled in Québec for six months”. As it turns out, (1) is a prerequisite in order for (3) to be satisfied, as two voters were turned down, having turned 18 less than six months ago. The other two were denied for other, to quote, “not unreasonable” reasons surrounding domicile.
I find it disappointing that when Canada is having record low voter turnouts, particularly among the younger generations, that these motivated and proactive students are still denied, even after going to distances that most other voters would not.
There seems to be some averse attitudes towards university students floating around lately, such as that PQ candidate Janette Bertrand’s story of the hypothetical takeover of her apartment’s swimming pool by “rich McGill students” (well, perhaps she some sort of point around setting a standard for reasonable accommodation but it was lost amidst her imagination and creative logic–and perhaps general xenophobia and battiness). Not to mention the controversy when one PQ candidate raised the alarm that university students were trying to take over, not just a swimming pool this time, but the election itself. Out of province university students do tend to be regarded as transients—come to study and leave right after, which is perhaps beneficial if you don’t want to get wrapped up in the local politics, but for those that intend to stay and involve themselves, this preconception may not play out in their favour.