Court Decision: Court and Canadian Expats

court decision: For civic-minded expats whose voting rights have expired under the challenged law, the Supreme Court hearing is the final act in a protracted legal drama that has kept their right to participate in the franchise in limbo, according to CBC. Full disclosure the Canadian American Bar Association, of which I am president, is an intervener in the case. The appeal takes aim at legislation enacted in 1993 but loosely implemented until the Harper government began a campaign of rigid enforcement that deprives most Canadian expats of their ability to vote after they have resided outside of Canada for more than five years. A supposedly 'severed' connection In 2015, a two-judge majority of the Ontario Court of Appeal reversed a lower court decision striking down the law. The Trudeau government is expected to defend the law as a valid exercise of its policy-making discretion, but also to repeat earlier promises to repeal it. It deemed the restriction justified because long-term expats had severed their connection with Canada in pursuit of their livelihoods and opted out of the social contract. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.