was a little misinformed by this; the media is not helping. the '93 mulroney law actually gave ex-pats the right to vote, along with some other categories of people. this legislation was "reinterpreted" by elections canada in 2008, hence the court case challenging it and the overturning of the "reinterpretation" last year.

i'm not really sure exactly what the right legal approach is regarding challenging the "reinterpretation" of existing legislation. you'd expect that the way legislation is interpreted should be based on the existing precedent of how it was interpreted previously - and that any judicial body would uphold that. if there's a precedent for this, i'm really not aware of it. it's almost kafkaesque, really. can the government "reinterpret" any legislation at all, in any way it so desires? that's itself unconstitutional, as the common law precedents are a key aspect of the rule of law.

there was a bill in parliament, c-50, that would have rewritten the five-year limitation to explicitly exclude non-residents, but the election halted it.

i don't like the ruling itself, either. the oakes test is meant for extreme circumstances, and should not be applied willy-nilly like it was. it's kind of a mockery of the constitution, really. you've gotta jump through some serious hoops to conclude that restricting voting is a reasonable limitation in a free and democratic society, and those hoops were seriously jumped through.

it's easy to see why there's so much confusion around it. it's a messy situation at just about every point. it's so messy that it's hard to even produce a remedy. i mean, the question in front of the court isn't actually the legislation. it's the way the government interprets it. i don't think that's ever happened....

i've tried googling various of interpretations of "government reinterprets legislation" and the idea seems to just not exist.

the government writes legislation.

the court interprets it.

no wonder people are confused...

ok. so, if you back up...

it seems like the people challenging the decision are going about this through the wrong channels. the decision to "reinterpret legislation" would have to be seen as an executive/administrative decision, and that's consequently what the primary challenge should have been based around. can the government "reinterpret" the legislation as they have, in the first place?

it's only after you get through that process - once you determine what the legislation actually says - that you can start questioning it's constitutionality. and, i have a very hard time with the way the oakes test was used, here...

this strikes me as both unreasonable and incorrect, if we base correctness on existing precedent.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-expats-cant-vote-1.3204664