In an article on the Canadian electoral system in our first issue on August 1, 2001, we treated with this subject in the following passage:

Recently Canadians filled out their forms for the 2001 census. We were obliged to do so by law. Penalties await those who did not perform this mandatory civic duty.

Which is more important, a census or a General Election? Both are important, but why make participation in one mandatory and not in the other?

This is a matter that we will return to in future issues of The Canadian Vindicator.

Six months on, in January, 2002, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, rejected the suggestion that voting be made mandatory for general elections in Canada.

In an interview with Ottawa Citizen reporter Chris Cobb, Kingsley stated:

"The federal government has rejected calls for a system similar to that in Australia where eligible voters are fined if they don't cast a ballot", adding that fining people for not voting has no place in Canada's electoral system. "It is an idea that has died," he concluded.

Whoa! Listen up, Mr. Kingsley! Ideas don't die just because you say so. The struggle for electoral reform in Canada cannot be confined by dismissing so peremptorily the suggestion that our civic duty to vote cannot be made mandatory because at present "it has no place" in the Canadian electoral system.

Citizens have a civic duty to vote, and duty carries with it responsibility. Almost 40% of Canadians did not fulfill their duty in 2001 general election. They shirked their responsibility.

True, contrarians may say they were exercising their freedom not to vote, but freedom from carrying out a civic duty all other citizens perform, and perform freely, should carry a penalty.

What the nature of that penalty might be is a matter for examination and debate. It does not necessarily have to be fiscal, as in the case of a fine for a traffic offence. It is not beyond the competence of the bureaucracy to devise an appropriate penalty. And even if it should take the form of a $25 or $50 fine, added as tax or deducted from rebates and benefits, consider the accrual to the national exchequer. For every million non-voters, $25 million or $50 million would be realized, a sum not to be sniffed at in these times of rising government expenditures.

What is important to remember is that almost 40% of eligible voters did not fulfill their civic duty in 2001 in Canada.

Mr. Kingsley deserves commendation for putting forward the idea, not "dead" but impractical, of allowing eligible voters to cast their ballots in general elections via the Internet when secure identification of individual voters can be established. Personation via cyber space is all too easy at present. Allowing voters to vote via telephone at a recent political party leadership convention provoked charges of widespread manipulation.

If Australians see wisdom in making voting at general elections mandatory, why, oh why, can't Canadians? Use the Internet to let your Members of Parliament know what you think.