Month: October 2019

This editorial first appeared in the Toronto Star on October 20, 2019.

Given the haze, ambiguity and, crucially, the unpredictability of this election campaign, it is becoming harder to determine how everything will shape up after Canadians head to the polls on Monday. While still unclear, seat distributions seem to signal a return to the minority governments of our not so distant past.

Among all the uncertainty however, one thing is crystal clear: the Bloc Québécois is well and truly back.

When Gilles Duceppe stepped down as leader of the Bloc in 2011, the party was careening toward irrelevance at breakneck speed. Stripped of official party status and struggling with its identity at a time when the notion of sovereignty had become less and less popular with Quebecers, the party was a pale shadow of its former status as a potent third-party in the early Harper years.

While the 2015 election saw the party elect 10 MPs, the ensuing years were marred by defections, infighting and the decline of Pauline Marois’ Parti Québécois — their provincial cousins. All the while, pundits, politicos and partisans continued to raise the same nagging question, “how can a sovereigntist party remain relevant when most Quebecers no longer support sovereignty?”

Over the past few months, party leader Yves-Françoise Blanchet has answered that question and done much, much more. Facing a serious decline in support for separatism in Quebec, Blanchet has responded by transforming the party with a pivot from sovereignty to nationalism.

While only about 30 per cent of Quebecers currently support sovereignty, the Bloc has managed to tap into a rising nationalist sentiment, driven by a feeling that Quebecois culture is under threat. It was this emotional tide that François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec rode to victory in 2018, promising voters that rather than fighting for sovereignty, they would forcefully stand up for the interests of the province, within Canada.

Despite his past as a Parti Quebecois minister, Blanchet has skilfully managed to align with Legault in a way that has eluded the other federal parties. Indeed, Blanchet has explicitly said his decision to run for the leadership of the Bloc was motivated by his desire to ensure there would be Quebec MPs to defend actions taken by the CAQ.

It has started with his ardent defence of Bill 21. Over the course of the election campaign, Blanchet has made the bill a key issue, defending above all the Quebec government’s right to implement legislation as it sees fit.

And it has hurt the Liberals and Conservatives, especially. For weeks, Blanchet has forced other party leaders to speak up on the issue and clarify their stance on the bill, which has become a shorthand of sorts for Quebec’s right to self-governance.

We’ve seen both Scheer and Trudeau squirm on the debate stage as Blanchet accused them of meddling in provincial affairs when it comes to the controversial bill. By doing so, the Bloc leader has shown Quebecers what a vote for the Bloc can deliver. In essence, Blanchet is saying: “this is what it would look like to have an ally in the House pushing the other parties to stand up for you.”

What’s more, Blanchet has done it all with a certain flair. It is no coincidence that the resurgence of the Bloc is being led by a former media commentator and known personality in provincial politics. He is media-savvy and his ability to earn public attention has served the party well throughout the course of the campaign.

Those skills stand him in stark contrast to Gilles Duceppe, whose blunt communication style and stern demeanour reminded Canadians — and Quebecers — of the implied conflict embedded in separatist politics. Blanchet, on the other hand, is a leader of the social media age: calm, sensible and likeable.

Many will say that Blanchet has an inherent advantage because he is not, at the end of the day, running to be prime minister of Canada. Indeed, he is running to be — for all practical purposes — the prime minister of Quebec. But to anyone who witnessed firsthand the decline of the Bloc, that does not make the party’s resurgence any less impressive. And it does not mean that his success will have any less impact on the formation of government, come Tuesday morning.

This column originally appeared in the Toronto Star on Sunday, October 13.

As we all gathered around to celebrate thanksgiving this weekend, I felt especially grateful for my incredible family and so lucky to have with us my amazing mother, a woman whose view of the world and commitment to the service of others has so profoundly influenced me and the person I have become.

Sadly, in recent years, my mother’s cognitive facilities have declined with a swiftness that is both devastating and unspeakably heart breaking.

As our family, like so many others, talked about the election together this weekend, I began to think about the role played by Canadians — approximately 500,000 Canadians — with cognitive impairments in our most basic democratic tradition. How, I wondered, do individuals like my mother participate in our democracy and what supports are in place for them to do so?

By the next election in 2023-2024, nearly 1-in-5 Canadians will be older than 65, and with that demographic shift will come increased rates of Alzheimer’s and dementia. We also know that older voters turn out to the polls in disproportionate numbers.

Having reached her eighth decade, my mother lives in a country almost unique in the world where there are no restrictions on her ability to vote regardless of how much her mental condition deteriorates. In a survey of 62 countries, only four lacked a mental capacity requirement on the right to vote. (The others are Ireland, Italy and Sweden.) Within Canada, only one province or territory, Nunavut, has such a restriction on the eligibility to vote.

South of the border, by contrast, such restrictions are the norm. More than 30 U.S. states have laws limiting those with mental disabilities or cognitive impairments from voting if they have been ruled legally incompetent.

These restrictions do not only impact the elderly, as many illnesses or conditions can result in cognitive impairment including multiple sclerosis, strokes, traumatic brain injuries, Parkinson’s or Huntington’s disease, as well as Alzheimer’s and dementia. In cases where successful legal challenges have been mounted against mental capacity requirements, the plaintiffs are often autistic.

As with so many of the battles over voting rights, the argument in favour of restrictions boils down to a defence against voter fraud. Proponents fear that people will use the vulnerable and the elderly to harvest their ballots.

Until 1988, this was the basis of the law in Canada, as dictated by the mental capacity provision of the Canadian Elections Act, which excluded from voting any person who was “restrained of his liberty of movement or deprived of the management of his property by reason of mental disease.” That year, Madam Justice Reed held that the provision was in violation of the Charter, which guarantees to every Canadian citizen the right to vote.

“It simply does not follow that people who are declared incapable of managing their financial affairs are necessarily incapable of understanding the nature of the right to vote and of exercising it in a rational manner,” wrote Justice Reed.

While subsequent blue-ribbon panels recommended a narrower restriction, Parliament opted simply to repeal the law in time for the 1993 federal election. Nothing has yet replaced it, and so far, our democracy has gotten along just fine since then.

What’s more, a number of informal approaches have developed to ensure abuse does not take place. U.S. surveys have shown that in nursing homes, where this kind of challenge is a perennial problem, staff have figured out a gatekeeping system, quizzing residents on political questions to assess whether they are in a state of mind to vote.

The approach that forbids anyone in a long-term care home or anyone with a cognitive impairment from voting is rooted in an outdated view of mental health. Where once we sought to institutionalize those with mental disabilities to be cared for and saved from themselves, today, the prevailing view favours integration with the community. Today, the goal is a meaningful life lived as much as possible like everyone else. And there is no more meaningful contribution to our society than voting.