I have a treat coming to me on Thursday.
My family is coming in for my wedding this weekend. In the conversations leading up to that event, my mother informed me that I had received a letter from the Canadian government demanding to know why I had not voted in Canadian elections for the past several years. According to my mother, this was a legal form that I am apparently required to send back to them to provide an official response for my transgression.
Following the laughter and wondering if it had an option for "Get fucked! None of your business!", I had to shake my head. I'm not sure if there is a specific legal requirement for a Canadian citizen to vote in an election but I wouldn't be surprised if there was one at this point.
Socialism comes in many forms and not all of them are benign. Most supporters of socialism only see the benefits to them. Welfare, social programs, "free" health care and so on. But stuff like this can represent a downside. How can you have a free, vibrant representative democracy (or parliamentary in the case of Canada) when there are laws on the books that force citizens to vote upon legal penalty?
Doesn't that take away your free will and ability to dissent? To say: "I support none of you and will vote with my conscience by staying home on Election Day.". What if the society decides for the good of us that everyone must vote? Will they send police to force you to vote at gunpoint or imprison you in contempt of society until you do?
While I deplore the abysmal turnouts that general occur in American elections, at least you're free here to give the electioneers the middle finger and stay home. Can you imagine the riots that would ensue if there was a legal requirement to vote here? Although many leftist politicians would support such a thing, it would totally undermine individual freedom and liberty to choose or not choose.
So I am really looking forward to getting this letter from my mother. Because I want to see what law, if any, that is compelling me to reply. Because if there isn't one, I am going to thoroughly enjoy supplying them with a suitable response. Of course, my first inclination is to simply crumple it up and bin it. How dare the Canadian government demand an explanation of me as to my lack of voting!
Last time I checked, it was not legal for me to do so as I am an expatriate Canadian living in a foreign country. If they can't check Canadian tax records filed back in 1998 by me that indicated I was no longer liable to pay taxes in Canada because I was a resident of the USA (and paying taxes to the IRS in accordance with Canadian and US tax reciprocity agreements), tough on them.
The opportunities for mischief abound on this one. If I am legally required to provide them a response on penalty of some fine or imprisonment, I will certainly do so. The temptation to head down to the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC afterwards and ask for the form to formally renounce my Canadian citizenship afterwards will be really hard to resist though.
I will let you know if that is the case because I am sure you will want to know just how illusionary your freedom in Canada really is in some cases. I'm not knocking Canada yet but if they've passed a law giving them the power to demand such justifications from supposedly free citizens then my homeland is well on its way to becoming another formerly Great Britain. Or France, depending on what the French in Canada are doing these days.
Hopefully it is some bureaucratic form that some self-important bimbo thinks they can send out because of regulations they wrote internally and not backed by the force of law. If not, it is still tempting to ignore it just to see if they'd be willing to issue an extradition order for an ex-pat in the USA on the grounds they weren't voting. I dare say I might find a few folks sympathetic to my plight here to keep me from being sent back. That whole freedom thing and all that.
I weep for my homeland.
My family is coming in for my wedding this weekend. In the conversations leading up to that event, my mother informed me that I had received a letter from the Canadian government demanding to know why I had not voted in Canadian elections for the past several years. According to my mother, this was a legal form that I am apparently required to send back to them to provide an official response for my transgression.
Following the laughter and wondering if it had an option for "Get fucked! None of your business!", I had to shake my head. I'm not sure if there is a specific legal requirement for a Canadian citizen to vote in an election but I wouldn't be surprised if there was one at this point.
Socialism comes in many forms and not all of them are benign. Most supporters of socialism only see the benefits to them. Welfare, social programs, "free" health care and so on. But stuff like this can represent a downside. How can you have a free, vibrant representative democracy (or parliamentary in the case of Canada) when there are laws on the books that force citizens to vote upon legal penalty?
Doesn't that take away your free will and ability to dissent? To say: "I support none of you and will vote with my conscience by staying home on Election Day.". What if the society decides for the good of us that everyone must vote? Will they send police to force you to vote at gunpoint or imprison you in contempt of society until you do?
While I deplore the abysmal turnouts that general occur in American elections, at least you're free here to give the electioneers the middle finger and stay home. Can you imagine the riots that would ensue if there was a legal requirement to vote here? Although many leftist politicians would support such a thing, it would totally undermine individual freedom and liberty to choose or not choose.
So I am really looking forward to getting this letter from my mother. Because I want to see what law, if any, that is compelling me to reply. Because if there isn't one, I am going to thoroughly enjoy supplying them with a suitable response. Of course, my first inclination is to simply crumple it up and bin it. How dare the Canadian government demand an explanation of me as to my lack of voting!
Last time I checked, it was not legal for me to do so as I am an expatriate Canadian living in a foreign country. If they can't check Canadian tax records filed back in 1998 by me that indicated I was no longer liable to pay taxes in Canada because I was a resident of the USA (and paying taxes to the IRS in accordance with Canadian and US tax reciprocity agreements), tough on them.
The opportunities for mischief abound on this one. If I am legally required to provide them a response on penalty of some fine or imprisonment, I will certainly do so. The temptation to head down to the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC afterwards and ask for the form to formally renounce my Canadian citizenship afterwards will be really hard to resist though.
I will let you know if that is the case because I am sure you will want to know just how illusionary your freedom in Canada really is in some cases. I'm not knocking Canada yet but if they've passed a law giving them the power to demand such justifications from supposedly free citizens then my homeland is well on its way to becoming another formerly Great Britain. Or France, depending on what the French in Canada are doing these days.
Hopefully it is some bureaucratic form that some self-important bimbo thinks they can send out because of regulations they wrote internally and not backed by the force of law. If not, it is still tempting to ignore it just to see if they'd be willing to issue an extradition order for an ex-pat in the USA on the grounds they weren't voting. I dare say I might find a few folks sympathetic to my plight here to keep me from being sent back. That whole freedom thing and all that.
I weep for my homeland.
2 comments:
As another Canadian ex-pat, I'm also very, very curious about this. So far as I knew, I was not allowed to vote anymore precisely because we've been gone so long. Please do keep us updated!
Congratulations on your wedding!!!
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