Re: Wrong to let veiled women vote, Prime Minister says
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Posted by National Post on 11:36:19 2007/09/10
In Reply to:
Re: Most voters oppose tax-funding of religious schools posted by Ipsos-Reid Poll
Wrong to let veiled women vote, Harper says
Election Canada Decision
Mike De Souza
CanWest News Service
Monday, September 10, 2007
SYDNEY - Stephen Harper is accusing Elections Canada of overstepping its boundaries by deciding that veiled women can vote without revealing their faces in upcoming federal byelections in Quebec.
"I profoundly disagree with the decision," the Prime Minster said yesterday after wrapping up a summit with Pacific Rim leaders gathered in Australia.
"We just adopted this past sitting in the spring, Bill C-31, a law designed to have the visual identification of voters. That's the purpose of the law. That was the law adopted, I think virtually unanimously by Parliament, and I think this decision goes in an entirely different direction."
He urged Elections Canada officials to reconsider their decision, suggesting that Parliament might have to force them to do so.
Elections Canada did not issue a statement yesterday, but announced Marc Mayrand, Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, would hold a news conference today in Ottawa to clarify the application of the new voter identification provisions.
Mr. Harper said the body that oversees elections has to follow rules set down by elected members.
"I have to say that it concerns me greatly, because the role of Elections Canada is not to make its own laws, it's to put into place the laws that Parliament has passed," Mr. Harper said.
"So I hope they'll reconsider this decision. But in the meantime, if that doesn't happen, Parliament will have to consider what actions it's going to take to make sure that its intentions are put into place."
Mr. Harper's comments joined a chorus of condemnation that stretched across party boundaries in Canada. Liberal party leader Stephane Dion said he supported mandatory visual identification, so long as female elections officers are on hand to ensure voters' privacy.
Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress echoed Mr. Dion's sentiments. "We don't want to force anybody to change their religious inclination and beliefs," he said.
Mr. Elmasry said it is also important for women from religious minorities to vote. "At the same time there is a certain level of integrity in the election process that we must maintain."
Mr. Elmasry said only a small minority of Muslim women wear the niqab -- roughly seven out of Quebec's 150,000 Muslims.
Alia Hogben of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women agreed with the Prime Minister's position, and said too much was being made of the veil issue.
"I think he's right, I think for something like elections ... women would be happy to show their faces, I don't think it would be a problem," Ms. Hogben said. "I think it's being made into a problem and it doesn't need to be."
"For us the sad thing is it's always focusing on Muslims and as far as I know it wasn't a request made by Muslims," Ms. Hogben added. "It probably came up[from] Elections Canada-- with good intentions thinking they would try to accommodate people--but I don't think it's necessary."
Until recently, whether a voter wore a niqab or a burka generally was not an issue because there was nothing in Canada's elections law that required a voter to show their face or provide photo ID, explained Elections Canada spokesman John Enright. As long as voters could satisfy Elections Canada officials that they were Canadian citizens and lived in the riding, their faces didn't really enter into the process.
However, under changes to the Elections Act that came into effect this summer, voters across Canada are now required to produce photo identification in order to vote. With that requirement came the need for election officials to be able to compare the photo on the identification to the person seeking to vote.
© National Post 2007
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