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I want to start off from a slogan on a placard that read: “Voter Repression is the first step on the road to fascism.”

No one can actually tell what is on our Prime Minister’s mind but this voter suppression sure reminds me of the U.S. presidential election where African Americans in Florida were denied the right to vote after many sneaky tactics from old Jeb Bush.

Here in Canada Harper is tightening the requirements to vote which will mostly affect those without home addressees, those without proprer ID, or First Nations, Metis and Inuit who may not have Canadian at all.

I guess fewer voters, or fewer undesirable voters, the more likely you’ll win.

Quoting from Now Toronto:

“The prime minister has made it so much harder that ‘many tens of thousands’ of Canadians may be denied their constitutional right to cast a ballot in the upcoming federal election, according to Harry Neufeld, former chief electoral officer for British Columbia.”

It’s ironic that Harper’s “fair” is far from fair for so many.

Canada can be seen as a country made for cars with the beautiful expanse of safe-to-drive-through forests in the fall when the leaves are changing and the colour is to die for.

And if you have a driver’s licence with your full name, photograph and signature.

But people those like me who live in the big city with transit or because of poverty, transiency, or isolation don’t have one.

For those who don’t, to vote you need two pieces of ID, including something establishing your address, which is not included, for instance, in some health cards or on your passport.

The vouching standard in the past has become three times as complicated. Vouching for anyone in an Innu community is essential and the process should not be complicated.

Like so many, now I can’t vote.

 

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Krystalline Kraus

krystalline kraus is an intrepid explorer and reporter from Toronto, Canada. A veteran activist and journalist for rabble.ca, she needs no aviator goggles, gas mask or red cape but proceeds fearlessly...