Repeat After Me

Minister Kenny on Blaney's "veiled voter" legislation, which he finds "reasonable":

“I believe in personal liberty, even if I find some expressions of personal liberty a bit peculiar. I don’t think we should be regulating what people wear but when a citizen comes to deal with the government, particularly to exercise their right to vote, I think it’s entirely reasonable that we say we need to confirm who you are and a facial identification is a reasonable way of doing that.”

1) Showing your face does not "confirm who you are" if you aren't required to produce a photo ID. The Blaney Bill does not require you to produce a photo ID. Hence it fails in its (apparently) intended purpose.

2) If you really wanted to exercise a ballot not your own, you would do it by using the mail-in option, which, once again, the Blaney Bill does nothing to deal with.

Very simple really.

How Tell If Steven Blaney's Veiled Voting Bill Is Thinly Disguised Bigotry

If it isn't, it will require voters to show photo ID. Without that requirement, unveiling only demonstrates you have a face, not that you are the person whose name is on the ID card. And, logically, it will require that all voters provide photo ID, for the same reason.

And of course David Akin notes that mail-in voters aren't required to show their faces to anyone.

Veiled Flyers = Veiled Voters Redux!

Kady's live-blogging the Public Safety Committee meetings on that bogus QMI story re gangs of veiled Muslim women attempting to board our decent, Christian Canadian Aeroplanes:

Oh, goodness. It seems that Volpe is here to do more than just fill us in on what *his* committee has been doing -- his staffer just handed out copies of the current federal identity screening regulations -- SOR/2007-82 -- which are available on the Justice website, and which appear to show that there *is* no requirement that the gate security match the face to the photo identification, but the name on the boarding pass to the name on the id -- one government-issued photo id, or two government-issued ids that include name, date of birth and gender. Yeah, this is veiled voting all over again. Someone alert Chris Selley so he can mentally prepare himself for the semantic distortions that lie ahead.

...which kind of makes you wonder about all the anonymous airport staffers that told Brian Lilley's they were forced to ignore regs out of political correctness, especially since the reg they were told to ignore appears to be imaginary.

Here's the real reg here.

PS. And any attempt to change the reg will run up against the problem of non-Muslim men/women who turn up at an airport with no photo ID.

A Triumph Of The Blogosphere

...is what I was thinking when I read this requiem for the Tory's veiled voter legislation. The fact is, when this story first broke, all of Canada was headed for a six day bender of capital "X" xenophobia. Then, in a terrific series of posts back in 2007 that seem to have entirely disappeared, Red Tory did what, apparently, no-one else in Canada, and certainly no-one else in the MSM or HOC, had done--which was read the recently passed changes to the Elections Act and point out that they did NOT require that voters provide photo ID, something that (for example) Canwest News had not figured out at the time (and still seems a bit confused about).

Afterwards, the fake outrage died off relatively quickly.

The kind of story to mention when someone tells you we need the MSM for their standards.

My origonal take on the controversy here.

Canada Will Now Discriminate Against Muslim Voters

After standing tall for so many months, it looks like Marc Mayrand has felt the need to make a conciliatory gesture towards Canadian mouth-breathers. Note that the new directive, like the "veiled voters legislation" that died when this election was called, will have no effect on voting fraud--if you are willing to don a veil in order to cheat, surely you will be willing to recite an oath to further the deception. It also does nothing to cover voting by mail--you can don your veil when you drop a ballot in the mailbox, and you don't have to utter any silly oaths either!

Very disappointing from a man who I was beginning to regard as a bit of a hero.

Principled NDPers! Get Ready To Barf!

I seldom write about the NDP, because I'm not willing to spend too much time over a fringe party, it doesn't bring me alot of traffic, and frankly its like being a heckler at the Special Olympics. But the following cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged.

Blonde blogging uber-babe Kadey O'Malley's is discussing C-6, the Tories infamous "veiled voter bill":

The Liberals are, as far as I know, the only party to officially...oppose the re-tweaked bill - which, rather remarkably, managed to once again omit any requirement that voters present photo identification, thereby rendering moot any reasonable argument in favour of - or, for that matter, against - forcible de-veiling.

I don't want to walk through the whole idiotic history of this bill again, but O'Malley's comments get to the nub of it. The Tories want veiled (Muslim) women to show their faces when they come to vote, while NOT requiring that they (or anyone else) present photo identification. Thus the act of unveiling will not prove that they are who they claim to be, only that they do indeed possess a face.

It isn't surprising that the Bloc should get behind this legislation, representing as they do some of the most regressive elements of Quebec society. The NDP's position, however, seems to waver between upholding reason and common sense and whoring it up for French rednecks in a desperate attempt to scare up votes in La Belle Province. Shame on them and Jack Layton!

I Doubt Even Conservatives Will Buy His Baloney

John Turley-Ewart (who?) on Bill C-6 and Dion's response to it:

"Indeed, one has to prove one's identity to buy an airplane ticket, alcohol or cigarettes. Proving one's identity to vote — the most important exercise within a democracy — should not be treated with such disregard. Mr. Dion could have advocated legislation that would improve the integrity of our democracy, by opposing voting by mail and proxy and while wearing a veil.

Such a move would have presented the Liberals as agents for positive change, a party that respected the sanctity of the democratic process. Instead, Mr. Dion turned his back on principle. "

Well, of course, while Dion can "advocate" anything he wants, it is currently Conservative Legislation under consideration, and this legislation does nothing to establish a voter's identity because, as apparently needs to be repeated over and over again, it does not require the newly unveiled face to be matched against any form of photo ID.

Now, perhaps Dion should put forward legislation that 1) requires veiled women to unveil somewhere in the vicinity of the polling booth, 2) fixes the issue of mail-in voting and voting by proxy, where again it is impossible to determine whether the person casting the ballot is who they claim to be. If there is a problem (of voter fraud?) to be solved here, then this kind of legislation would do a better job of it than C-6. But that would certainly not preclude being against C-6.

But is there a problem to be solved? The Bloc Quebecois opposition to C-6 is instructive:

The Bloc Quebecois also opposes the bill but for entirely different reasons. Bloc MPs object to the fact that veiled women will be allowed to uncover their faces privately before female polling officials.

Female polling officers may be hard to find in some of Quebec's small towns, and bringing them in might cost $$$. The Bloc supports the idea of Muslim bashing, in other words, but if its going to cost them to do it, no thanks.

Layton Finds His Conscience?

The Canadian Press story mostly discusses Dion and the Liberals' evolution on C-6 (veiled voting legislation). But it ends with this little nugget:

New Democrat Paul Dewar says the party will not support the bill as written.

A version of the same story from several hours ago, however, gives a slightly different account of the NDP position:

The government bill is likely to pass, however, with NDP support.

Looks like the NDP position has evolved over the afternoon. Half a clap to Jack Layton for doing what was, given the deficiencies of the bill, obviously the right thing. C-6 should fall now. I imagine somebody looked at internal polls or applied some logic to the legislation and realized that there is no point making someone unveil if you are not going to demand photo ID. Its nice to see it that, in Canada, Muslim bashing isn't always a political plus.

Finally Libs Show A Little Balls On Veiled Voting

Liberal MP John Godfrey:

... pointed out that the bill would continue to allow voters options for identifying themselves: provide one piece of photo identification or two pieces of non-photo identification or have someone swear an oath as to one's identity.

"Until you have a universal piece of photo identification for all Canadian citizens, regardless, and require it for every voter, then there is absolutely no more reason to present your face (at the polling station) than your belly button."

Well exactly. After some pretty disgraceful behavior around this issue previously (which Godfrey about half admits was an attempt to pander during the Quebec by-elections), its nice to see that the Libs, as Adam Radwanski puts it, are losing the fear of their own shadows.

But What If She Votes By Mail?

Not many details on the new Tory anti-veiled-woman legislation, which

require[s] all voters — including veiled Muslim women — to reveal their faces before being allowed to cast ballots in federal elections.

but whether it is an honest attempt to "fix" Canada's electoral system or an excuse to hassle Muslims will depend on two things:

1) Does it require people voting by mail to visually confirm their identity? If not, the whole purpose of the legislation is defeated: how will we know that they aren't hiding their faces when they drop their ballot in the post?

2) Will the requirement to unveil be accompanied by the requirement that all voters produce photo ID? If not, then the unveiling will not serve as a means to identify the voter, but merely as a form of ritual humiliation (of Muslim women).

And I don't see how any society is going to secure the patriotism of their minority groups by picking on their womenfolk. It seems counterproductive to me.

Update: the Gov. news release is here. So far it seems to say nothing about mail-in voting and providing photo ID when casting a ballot in person. In other words, the legislation will make people remove their veils even where this at does nothing to help establish their identity.

Kudos To McGuinty; Sucks To Jack Layton

A gutsy call by the Premier of Ontario in the middle of an election campaign:

Muslim women shouldn’t be forced to remove their veils to vote in Ontario’s election, Premier Dalton McGuinty said yesterday.

Meanwhile Jack Layton has reversed course and joined with Quebec pure-lines and English rednecks to demand that Elections Canada start reading stuff that the four Federal political parties didn't bother to put into their voting legislation, into their voting legislation.

Sell your soul for Outremont, would you Jack?

PS. John Tory showed a touch of class on this one, too. See the first link.

Harper's Veil Flip-Flop

In a terrific series of posts, RT has teased out the mixture of racism, demagoguery, and just plain stupidity behind the whole broo-ha-ha re Election's Canada Veiled Voter Ruling. The take-away lessons are several:

1) Everyone, including Stephen Harper, knew that these rules would allow veiled voting:

The fact remains that the regulations were clearly established and approved by parliament, that all the federal parties were thoroughly briefed on the guidelines back in July and there can be no excuse for their faux shock and surprise now. Elections Canada is NOT circumventing the will of parliament, it is NOT making up its own laws and it is NOT acting out of some imagined sense of “political correctness

So the question becomes: if Harper is so incensed by the new rules, why did he allow them to go forward in July? Was he overwhelmed by a flash of hatred for Canada? Did he suddenly go soft on Terror? Who knows, but he was for these rule changes before he was against them.

2) Demanding that velied muslim women expose their faces while at the same time NOT requiring that they present photo ID is the height of futility, unless the point is merely to hassle some Muslim women. Think about it: to what is one comparing the unveiled face?

3) This has nothing to do with National Security and voter fraud, everything to do with pandering to Quebec Yokeldom in particular, Canadian Yokeldom in general. If the radio shock jocks that originally stirred this pot were English and Western, the correct term for them would have been "hicks from the foothills outside of Gooberville". Unfortunately, I don't know an equivalent French phrase. And, frankly, it is terribly disappointing that some elements of the French race--who after all gave the world Bardot, Democracy, Destouche, snails, the corkscrew position AND the doggy style--should descend to this level of race baiting.

4) Sucks to Dion for being weak, to Duceppe were being himself, to Harper for being a demagogue. Kudos to Jack Layton and the NDP for not playing along.

Update: It's official. Stephen Harper doesn't know the contents of his own legislation (nor does anyone else, apparently, given the immensely confused coverage of this issue in the MSM):

Elections Canada says the parliamentary legislation governing how people can cast a vote does not require people to show their faces.

Chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand said Monday that the law does allow for veiled voters to decide whether or not to reveal their face.

Speaking at a press conference in Ottawa, he said that if people are not happy with that situation, “I invite parliament to re-examine the law, and [amend the law] if they feel it necessary.”