Why can’t I vote? asks Donald Sutherland
Lives in L.A. but kept Canadian citizenship
Arguing he has a Canadian passport, an Order of Canada and a “maple leaf in my underwear,” expatriate screen legend Donald Sutherland publicly decried Tuesday his inability to vote in Canadian federal elections.
“Americans who live abroad can vote. They can vote because they’re citizens! Citizens! But I can’t,” he wrote.
Sutherland, 80, lives in the United States, but is exclusively a Canadian citizen.
Although his letter blames the “Harper government” for stripping him of the franchise, he is likely unable to vote because of a 22-year-old law enacted by the government of Brian Mulroney.
The letter, published in The Globe and Mail, does not specifically indicate why Sutherland won’t be able to cast a ballot, stating only “if you don’t live here all the time you can’t vote.”
The actor is presumably referring to a long-standing law under which Canadian citizens lose their voting rights if they have lived outside the country for more than five consecutive years.
First established in 1993, the “five years” rule was overturned last year by the Ontario Superior Court, opening the door for as many as 1.4 million Canadian expats to cast a ballot in the October federal election.
Last month, however, it was reinstated after a successful appeal by Ottawa.
In a June decision, the Ontario Appeal Court essentially ruled long-term expats are too out of the loop to be allowed to affect domestic policy.
“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,” wrote Justice George Strathy.
The decision claims allowing expats like Sutherland to vote would violate a “social contract” under which Canadians submit to laws that they have played a hand in creating.
Leslie Seidle, a research director for the Institute for Research on Public Policy, says he finds the “social contract” argument “puzzling.”
“People are affected by all kinds of laws passed by people for whom they didn’t vote,” he told the National Post.
In Sutherland’s piece, he writes he and his wife Francine “live in Canada all the time we can” and Canada is still home to the “family house.” Sutherland owns a Victorian mansion in Georgeville, Que., located in the New Democratic Party-held riding of Compton-Stanstead.
If the actor had claimed the address as his primary residence at any point since 2010, he would be able to vote, provided he brought proof of Canadian residence.
Born in Saint John, Sutherland has starred in British and American films since the early 1960s, and has most recently been known for his work in the Hunger Games film franchise.
His lives primarily in Los Angeles but, as the actor noted Tuesday, he holds the Order of Can- ada, has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame and was a recipient of the Governor General’s Award.
Sutherland’s decision to retain his citizenship differs from fellow Canadians who have pursued careers in the United States.
Jim Carrey, Matthew Perry, Michael J. Fox and Alanis Morissette, among others, have either obtained dual citizenship or abandoned their ties to Canada completely.
“I’m not dual anything. I’m Canadian,” wrote Sutherland.
“There’s a maple leaf in my underwear somewhere. There used to be a beaver there, too, but I’m 80 now and beavers are known to take off when you’re in your 80s.”
Many other Commonwealth countries restrict expats from voting after a certain period of time abroad. Typically, they have much longer timelines although New Zealand bars expat votes at only three years.
This differs sharply from Western European nations like France and Italy, whose parliaments contain members specifically elected to represent expatriates.
Canadians with dual French citizenship, for instance, are represented in the Paris-based National Assembly by Frédéric Lefebvre, a member who represents all French citizens living in North America.
There’s a maple leaf in my underwear somewhere