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Canadian actor Donald Sutherland wants vote in his own country

Ex-pats denied vote in Canada

Sutherland, awarded the Order of Canada in 1978, as well as receiving other honors in his country, has been living in the U.S. for some 45 years and though he and his wife have a residence in Quebec, they pay their taxes in the U.S., where their full-time residence is.

Since 1993 the law in Canada has said that Canadians who don’t live in the country, and don’t pay taxes there, forfeit their vote. But Sutherland, who recently appeared in the Hunger Games series, feels that should not be so.

“My name is Donald Sutherland. My wife’s name is Francine Racette. We are Canadians. We each hold one passport. A Canadian passport. That’s it,” Sutherland wrote in the piece published in the Globe and Mail Tuesday.

“They ask me at the border why I don’t take American citizenship. I could still be Canadian, they say. You could have dual citizenship. But I say no, I’m not dual anything. I’m Canadian. There’s a maple leaf in my underwear somewhere.”

The 80-year-0ld actor has decried his lack of voting status in the wake of an Ontario Supreme Court that came down last week, a decision that overturned a lower court ruling that gave back to ex-pat Canadians the right to vote in federal elections in Canada. The much-heralded actor, winner of four Emmy awards, a Golden Globe and a Genie Award, is part of a group of Canadians living abroad who want the law changed.

Voting laws in Canada

There are those who agree with the law as is. The National Post published a letter in response to Sutherland’s piece by a reader who signed the rebuttal only as “sanctimonious”:

“Mr. Sutherland chose to be a non-resident of Canada,” sanctimonious writes. “As such, he pays taxes to the country he resides in – the USA. The same holds true for any non-resident Canadian. One would have to ask why he or any other non-resident Canadian should have representation without taxation?

“Mr. Sutherland references US citizens’ ability to vote but the US taxes on the basis of citizenship and as well as residency,” the rebuttal adds. “There is no question that Mr.Sutherland is successful and Canadian but, if his success is dependent on maintaining non-residency status, loss of his vote is the price he must pay for it.”

Justice George Strathy, a part of the majority that overturned the lower court decision, wrote this in his ruling: “Permitting all non-resident citizens to vote would allow them to participate in making laws that affect Canadian residents on a daily basis but have little to no practical consequence for their own daily lives. This would erode the social contract and undermine the legitimacy of the laws.”

It appears that Sutherland does not believe the justice, however, and is of the opinion that the Stephen Harper government may be behind the battle to keep the law as is, and that he believes it’s because the Prime Minister fears the ex-pat vote could help throw his party from office.

“This new ‘Canada,'” he writes. “This Canadian government that has taken the true Canada’s place, has furiously promoted a law that denies its citizens around the world the right to vote. Why? Is it because they’re afraid we’ll vote to return to a government that will once again represent the values that the rest of the world looked up to us for? Maybe.”

There are some 1.4 million Canadians affected by the ruling.

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