No veils while voting, PM says TheStar.com - Canada - No veils while voting, PM says
September 09, 2007
Tonda MacCharles
Ottawa Bureau
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA- Prime Minister Stephen Harper has challenged Elections Canada to reverse itsdecision to allow women wearing a veil to vote without showing their face.
Hours before Elections Canada was to hold a news conference in Canada, Harper said he “profoundly disagreed” with the agency’s move which has been met with outrage in many quarters.
Elections Canada is an independent agency that reports to Parliament and runs elections and referendums in Canada.
“We just adopted this spring, Bill C-31, a law designed to have the visual identification of voters,” he told reporters.
“That’s the purpose of the law. That was the law adopted, I think, virtually unanimously by Parliament, and I think this decision goes in an entirely different direction.
Harper added that he is concerned because the role of Elections Canada is not to make laws, but implement laws passed by Parliament.
“So I hope that they will reconsider this decision, but in the meantime if that doesn’t happen, Parliament will have to consider what actions it’s going to take to make sure that its intentions are put into place.”
The Elections Canada decision to permit women wearing a veil to vote prompted a striking protest in Quebec Friday during advance polling for the Sept. 17 by-elections in that province.
In the riding of Outremont, five non-Muslim women wearing head-to-toe black burkas went to vote to register their outrage.
It also drew demands from the Liberal and Bloc Quebecois leaders that Elections Canada reverse the policy. The New Democrats have proposed what they call a compromise: to staff voting stations with a private place where women can unveil themselves to a female Elections Canada official.
Last spring, a public and political outcry over a similar move to allow veiled voting by Quebec’s elections director led that agency to reverse its decision.
Elections Canada is scheduled to hold a news conference in Ottawa Monday morning to address the issue.
No veils while voting, PM says
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