Liberals plan changes to expat voting rules The Canadian Press

• Allowing longterm Canadian expats to vote in federal elections is not a Constitutional requirement but a policy decision that Parliament has the right to make, the government plans to tell the country’s top court.

Elected officials implemented a voting ban for those out of the country for more than five years, and the decades-old law is perfectly legitimate, the Liberal government argues in new filings with the Supreme Court of Canada.

At the same time, the Liberal government indicates in the documents that it plans changes to the law.

“Parliament’s 1993 choice ... had the pressing purpose of maintaining the fairness of the democratic system and was a proportional limit,” the government says in its factum.

“If a new Parliament makes the judgment that the maintenance of this limit is not required any longer to ensure the fairness of the electoral system, that is a judgment that should be made by elected officials and Parliament. It is not required by the Charter.”

The law, the Liberal government argues in its factum, recognizes that long-term non-residents have “different and less onerous responsibilities” under Canadian law and the ban was not intended as a value judgment on any individual voter.

In February, the Supreme Court is set to take up a challenge to the ban by two Canadians living in the U.S. The two people initially won a declaration in 2014 that the law infringed their constitutional rights, but Ontario’s top court restored the legislation on the basis of preserving the “social contract” between Canadians and their government.