Canadian actor Donald Sutherland is taking Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to task over a federal law that takes away the right to vote from Canadian citizens living abroad for more than five years.
Mr. Sutherland attacked the policy in an opinion piece published Tuesday in the Globe and Mail titled, “I’m Canadian — and I have a right to vote”
His comments follow an Ontario Court of Appeal decision earlier this month that upheld federal voting restrictions enacted in 1993 under a Liberal government following heated debate about expatriates’ knowledge of Canadian politics and their ties to Canada.
The law prohibited Canadian citizens from voting if they had lived outside of Canada for more than five consecutive years.
But the so-called “five years” rule was overturned in 2014 by the Ontario Superior Court. That opened the door for up to 1.4 million Canadian expatriates to vote in the upcoming federal election, expected on Oct. 19.
This month’s Ontario Court of Appeal decision reinstated the five-year rule following a successful appeal by the federal government.
Mr. Sutherland, who was born in Saint John, N.B., still has a home in Canada.
In the piece, he says he’s proud of his Canadian citizenship and that he has refused to obtain U.S. citizenship even though he spends much of his time living and working in the U.S.
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