Supreme Court of Canada appeal on expatriate voting rights – February 16 schedule

Will be interesting to see if the SCC accepts federal government arguments that the case is now moot given the provisions in Bill C-33. Unlikely that their will be any change due to the Cabinet Cabinet shuffle and the replacement of Maryam Monsef by Karina Gould, the new Minister for Democratic Institutions:

A federal law barred Canadians from voting in federal elections if they have lived abroad for more than five years. In Gillian Frank, et al. v. Attorney-General of Canada, two Canadian academics at Ivy League universities say that law violated the constitutional right of all citizens to vote. One judge of the Ontario Court of Appeal agreed, saying the law turned them into second-class citizens, and that even federal prisoners have a constitutional right to vote; but two judges said the government had put a reasonable limit on that right, because expatriates don’t live with the daily consequences of their voting decision. The Liberal government has since introduced a law to repeal the legislation barring voting from abroad, but it has not passed yet. The government argues the case is now moot; the court has not decided yet whether it is.

Source: A preview of the Supreme Court of Canada’s winter session – The Globe and Mail