Victoria Ferauge: Expatriate Voting: Engagement or Illusion?

Further to Canadian expatriates should never lose the right to vote, an effective rebuttal by Victoria Ferauge (an American expat):

Americans abroad are a fraction of the population of the homeland:  7 million versus 300 million.  Canadians abroad are 2.9 million versus 35 million – a higher percentage which might or might not make a difference.  How many of those 2.9 million expats  who were within the 5 year limit now defunct bothered to register?  No idea, I could not find any statistics.  The argument in the Global and Mail editorial would have been so much more compelling if there was hard evidence that Canadians abroad were clamouring for the vote.

Sevi argues that “Canada needs to take a proactive approach to engage Canadians living abroad.”  I would say from my own experience that if expatriate voting rights equal responsibility without power or effective representation, then it is clearly NOT the best way to engage that country’s expatriate community.  If the franchise is simply a symbolic gesture to show how very hip and global a country is or an excuse to extract money/support from them, then it isn’t for the expats at all – it’s all about the homelands self-image and self-interest – and that is a terrible place to begin a  dialogue with ones diaspora.

The Franco-American Flophouse: Expatriate Voting: Engagement or Illusion?.