Do long-term ex-pats deserve to vote in Canada?

The Supreme Court of Canada is currently debating the law on the voting rights of Canadian citizens living abroad, with a public statement scheduled for later today. Since 1993, the law states that ex-pats can vote in Canadian elections for five years, after which time they lose the right to vote.

Many people, including many expatriates, seem to think that the law as it is currently framed discriminates against them, and makes them less of a Canadian citizen than those who choose to stay home. An op-ed example of this way of thinking appears in todays Globe and Mail. In outrage, Ms. Rafiei expostulates: "By stripping this right away after five years, our government makes a resounding judgment that expatriates are less Canadian because we live abroad."

Well, yes, that sounds about right to me. Five years is a long time. It is long enough for someone on a work contract abroad, and with intentions to return to Canada afterwards, to do their thing and still have their say on the situation in the country they expect to return to. If someone stays away for more than five years, then there is a distinct probability that they will not be returning. Even so, arguably, they are not any less Canadian, in that they retain their Canadian citizenship.

The five years is admittedly a more or less arbitrary timescale, but it seems about right to me. Anyone who lives broad for longer than that has clearly burnt their boats, at least to some extent, and made a definite choice not to live in Canada, for one reason or another. In that respect they are indeed "less Canadian", and deserve to have less say in the way the country is run for the rest of us.

Should retirees who move long-term to Florida or Costa Rica because they like the weather, for example, have an equal say over what is happening "back home"? I would argue that they have made a lifestyle choice and need to live with the consequences of that: become an American or Costa Rican citizen and vote locally, but don't expect to influence the political landscape in some other country where they don't live. I came to Canada from the UK, and I think I probably can still vote there, but I don't, because it just seems morally wrong. I would expect no different were I to move from Canada.

 

UPDATE

Well, the courts have spoken, and does anyone ever listen to me anyway?

The Supreme Court has ruled that ex-pats have the right to vote in Canadian elections regardless of how long the have lived outside the country. The Chief Justice summarized, "Any limit on the right to vote must be carefully scrutinized and cannot be tolerated without a compelling justification", which sounds fine and dandy to me, but I guess his idea of a compelling justification is not the same as mine.