[CountLothian]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

To put it another way. You claimed to have originally been from Montreal but have moved out of Quebec since. So, do you still get to vote in Quebec elections? How about municipal elections in Montreal? No? Gee, I wonder why THAT could be.

Unbelievable.

"The creature thinks this is supposed to appeal to some one breathing and get a reply".

[llama66]

Just sayin'

$1:

Democratic Rights

Democratic rights of citizens

3. Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.

[herbie]

llama66 llama66:

Just sayin'

$1:

Democratic Rights

Democratic rights of citizens

3. Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.

And once it gets to Supreme Court, that'll be the ruling.
But how does that reconcile with ridings? In Sutherland's case he owns property in a riding, is a Canadian citizen and should be allowed to vote in that riding.
What about the ones without any ties to a riding?
Maybe the votes can be counted if we have proportional MPs.

[martin14]

CountLothian CountLothian:

martin14 martin14:

Archten Archten:

1- I don’t like the state being able to manipulate the voting rights of natural Canadian citizens. That is a recipe for fascism.

But manipulating the voting rights of unnatural immigrant Canadian citizens is ok then ?

Good to know.

What exactly do you mean by unnatural immigrant Canadian citizens?

Why don't you start with asking Archten what he means by natural Canadian citizens ?

[Brenda]

I can answer that.
BORN CANADIANS, in the country, from 2 Canadian parents, who were born here too, from 2 Canadian parents, whose parents were born in Canada as well, from 2 parents who were roaming the vast land of what was not called Canada yet.
That leaves only Natives.

[llama66]

CountLothian CountLothian:

martin14 martin14:

Archten Archten:

1- I don’t like the state being able to manipulate the voting rights of natural Canadian citizens. That is a recipe for fascism.

But manipulating the voting rights of unnatural immigrant Canadian citizens is ok then ?

Good to know.

What exactly do you mean by unnatural immigrant Canadian citizens?

Immigrants from the ether plane or zombies.

[CountLothian]

I don't keep tabs on whose who here, I've no interest in making friends with 99% of these people.
But some guy thinks you have to be born here or something to be Canadian.

Even the Native peoples came from somewhere else.

Apparently we all come from Africa.

I tend to think in terms of two tribes due to earwax. The watery greasy kind, your ancestors are from Africa, the dry type your ancestors can be linked to what was labeled Early Peking Man, or some Monkey that did the same thing as the one in Africa, stand up and look on two legs.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

CountLothian CountLothian:

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

To put it another way. You claimed to have originally been from Montreal but have moved out of Quebec since. So, do you still get to vote in Quebec elections? How about municipal elections in Montreal? No? Gee, I wonder why THAT could be.

Unbelievable.

"The creature thinks this is supposed to appeal to some one breathing and get a reply".

Your parents were twins, weren't they.

[CountLothian]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

CountLothian CountLothian:

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

To put it another way. You claimed to have originally been from Montreal but have moved out of Quebec since. So, do you still get to vote in Quebec elections? How about municipal elections in Montreal? No? Gee, I wonder why THAT could be.

Unbelievable.

"The creature thinks this is supposed to appeal to some one breathing and get a reply".

Your parents were twins, weren't they.

Were yours racists?

[bootlegga]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I think Sutherland meets the criteria to vote; he is a citizen, he owns property in Canada, and he pays taxes in Canada. Brenda is not a citizen, nor does she choose to be. Sutherland chooses to remain a Canadian citizen.

[Archten]

martin14 martin14:

Archten Archten:

1- I don’t like the state being able to manipulate the voting rights of natural Canadian citizens. That is a recipe for fascism.

But manipulating the voting rights of unnatural immigrant Canadian citizens is ok then ?

Good to know.

I thought about that and was going to include a commentary on it but thought it a bit divergent and kept my original text short. But now that you ask…
First, each term needs to be defined:
1. A Natural Canadian is anyone, and I mean anyone, born within our borders.
2. An Immigrant Canadian (unnatural as you put it) is anyone, and I mean anyone, else.

In a nutshell, (and there is a great temptation to spin off into tangents), immigrants seeking citizenship in this country are offered a privilege by this great nation to become full members of our Canadian community. Make no mistake: for an immigrant wanting to become Canadian, citizenship is a privilege, not a right. Period. Once granted citizenship status, they can enjoy protection under our law and all other rights and privileges afforded any other Canadians with one exception: they should not have the right to permanently retain that citizenship status regardless of their actions. They should not be permitted to come to this country, become a citizen, leave and expect to enjoy the privilege of voting in our electoral system. Nor should we Canadians tolerate a new Canadian that expects we should change our values and way of life to suite their values imported from their homeland. If Canada as-is does not suite them, they can forfeit the privilege of citizenship and leave, in that order, anytime.

On the other hand, a natural Canadian should not be stripped of their citizenship or any of the rights citizenship entails. That includes the right to vote. It is a discipline any democratic nation must assume, as well a bear the responsibility for the actions of that citizen. It is the discipline of a democratic country not to arbitrarily divorce a citizen or trample on their rights because of a technicality, especially a citizen that has done nothing but espouse the incredible thing it is to be a Canadian.

Mr. Sutherland was born and raised in this country. Because of this, the country should respect his rights of citizenship. I wish he felt strongly enough about it to live here or at least live here for a significant length of time each year. I will not condemn him for his choice of avoiding winter. I trust he pays his taxes fairly: it’s expensive to run this country. His letter clearly states he understands our values, our sense of right and wrong and our sense of pride in who we are as a nation. Why else would he refuse to be anything else other than Canadian?

I don’t know HOW he intends to cast his vote, but I welcome it. I could go on but I feel this is enough for contemplation.

[CountLothian]

Archten Archten:

I thought about that and was going to include a commentary on it but thought it a bit divergent and kept my original text short. But now that you ask…
First, each term needs to be defined:
1. A Natural Canadian is anyone, and I mean anyone, born within our borders.
2. An Immigrant Canadian (unnatural as you put it) is anyone, and I mean anyone, else.
.

so what era of being born here are you talking about.

Because there was a time when man did not roam here.

[martin14]

Archten Archten:

In a nutshell, (and there is a great temptation to spin off into tangents), immigrants seeking citizenship in this country are offered a privilege by this great nation to become full members of our Canadian community. Make no mistake: for an immigrant wanting to become Canadian, citizenship is a privilege, not a right. Period. Once granted citizenship status, they can enjoy protection under our law and all other rights and privileges afforded any other Canadians with one exception: they should not have the right to permanently retain that citizenship status regardless of their actions. They should not be permitted to come to this country, become a citizen, leave and expect to enjoy the privilege of voting in our electoral system. Nor should we Canadians tolerate a new Canadian that expects we should change our values and way of life to suite their values imported from their homeland. If Canada as-is does not suite them, they can forfeit the privilege of citizenship and leave, in that order, anytime.

On the other hand, a natural Canadian should not be stripped of their citizenship or any of the rights citizenship entails. That includes the right to vote. It is a discipline any democratic nation must assume, as well a bear the responsibility for the actions of that citizen. It is the discipline of a democratic country not to arbitrarily divorce a citizen or trample on their rights because of a technicality, especially a citizen that has done nothing but espouse the incredible thing it is to be a Canadian.

In other words, you are proposing 2 classes of Canadian citizenship, depending on where you were born.

What an interesting idea.

[Khar]

Acheson, not much of what I saw in his letter was inherently Canadian. I don't view identity as being intrinsically tied to what my underwear looks like, or Dad humour being the same as Canadian humour. He can take pride in his heritage, but it doesn't change the fact he's not been a resident here since 1957, hasn't been part of any government recognition since the late seventies, and the last time he got an award for being Canadian was 15 years ago (which is more than the some time back he described). In fact, your own post weakens his idea of the value of citizenship, since you've decided to break it down.

In fact, if he went by your new definition, I doubt he'd agree with it, since it would exclude several of his family from voting, including Kiefer Sutherland (born in Britain), Angus Sutherland (USA), and Sarah Sutherland (his granddaughter who literally identifies as American). Further, it raises the question of, if foreign-born Canadians continue to identify as Canadian from abroad, why should we not support them when natural-born Canadians are impacted possibly quite the same way? If they don't have to worry about being governed by those laws where they live, then they should perhaps not have the option to engage in decisions about those laws, or on other aspects of governance. Does he get a choice in deciding when Canada goes to war if he's always in America? Or whether or not we should forgo infrastructure spending while driving on American roads? Or cutting health care while not having to worry about Canadian health insurance?

llama66 llama66:

Just sayin'

$1:

Democratic Rights

Democratic rights of citizens

3. Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.

Or not. As I pointed out in my prior posts, the court can and does rule against parts of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, because before Section 3, there's Section 1:

Rights and freedoms in Canada

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

The Canadian Charter can and does provide the capacity to limit specific rights in-so-far as they compete with other rights, freedoms, or securities that are more important. As long as the government provides a reasonable limit, as in it passes the Oakes test, then the law can limit subsequent sections. This is the entire point of this section, and it's put at the top for a reason. Better to have scholars argue out laws than set them in stone and creatively interpret them centuries later, in my view.

Just sayin'.

bootlegga bootlegga:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I think Sutherland meets the criteria to vote; he is a citizen, he owns property in Canada, and he pays taxes in Canada. Brenda is not a citizen, nor does she choose to be. Sutherland chooses to remain a Canadian citizen.

Sutherland is a citizen, but I don't buy that as the only criteria. It doesn't necessarily mean he should be entitled to all the same privileges as granted those of us who have lived here consistently at any point in the last sixty odd years.

For the same reasons my property owning family can't vote in Ontario as Albertans, I don't think Sutherland should be allowed to vote in Canada. If he wants to change his family's living conditions, I'm sure he can get involved in the politics of Santa Monica, California and the USA.

Just my view.

[DrCaleb]

Khar Khar:

bootlegga bootlegga:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I think Sutherland meets the criteria to vote; he is a citizen, he owns property in Canada, and he pays taxes in Canada. Brenda is not a citizen, nor does she choose to be. Sutherland chooses to remain a Canadian citizen.

Sutherland is a citizen, but I don't buy that as the only criteria. It doesn't necessarily mean he should be entitled to all the same privileges as granted those of us who have lived here consistently at any point in the last sixty odd years.

For the same reasons my property owning family can't vote in Ontario as Albertans, I don't think Sutherland should be allowed to vote in Canada. If he wants to change his family's living conditions, I'm sure he can get involved in the politics of Santa Monica, California and the USA.

Just my view.

As usual, a well reasoned view. However, as Llama points out, the Charter of rights gives citizens a right to vote - it doesn't exclude based on residency!

But the Citizenship acts of 1921 and 1946 define a non-citizen as:

$1:

Loss of Canadian citizenship generally occurred in the following cases:

naturalization outside Canada
in the case of a minor, naturalization of a parent
service in foreign armed forces
naturalized Canadians who lived outside Canada for 10 years and did not file a declaration of retention
where a Canadian had acquired that status by descent from a Canadian parent, and who was either not lawfully admitted to Canada for permanent residence on the commencement of the Act or was born outside Canada afterwards, loss of citizenship could occur on the person's 22nd birthday unless the person had filed a declaration of retention between their 21st and 22nd birthday and renounced any previous nationality they possessed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_ ... p_Act_1946

There are many rights that come with Citizenship. Donald Sutherland (and many other Canadians) may reside outside Canada, but they haven't lost the rights they possess stemming from that citizenship. For example, they have the right to seek refuge in a Canadian Consulate abroad if they need it. If they have lost none of the other rights, why should we exclude the right to vote, just because they live somewhere else because of work or some other consideration?

They are effectively excluded from voting, as mail-in ballots usually arrive long after the election is completed so their vote is essentially nullified.