There are brightly coloured construction paper hearts plastered on the walls, cubbyholes stuffed with plush animals and toddlers babbling as their parents line up to vote. Instead of candidates and political parties on the ballot there are policy issues like health care, education and immigration, which voters discuss excitedly in Russian, Spanish, Farsi and English before sharing a couple of takeout pizzas. This isn’t your typical polling station. It’s a Vote Pop-up, a dry run for a real election, which almost none in the room of mostly women at North York Community House on Tuesday are able to participate in because they aren’t citizens yet. The idea is that when they do become eligible to vote, they’ll be familiar with what can be a complicated process for many newcomers and other groups including youth, Indigenous and homeless people, ethnocultural communities and voters with disabilities. Elections Canada has pointed out these groups generally face hurdles at the polls and some participate in elections at lower levels compared to the rest of the population. It’s something the Liberal government’s recent attempt at democratic reform, a 300-plus-page veritable omnibus bill tabled last Monday, tries to tackle. Among other provisions targeting third-party partisan activity, political ad spending, transparency over how political parties collect and use voters’ personal information, limiting the length of the campaign, and 12-hour advance polling days, Bill C-76 contains several new and recycled provisions to improve access to the ballot. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the measures should be in place by the next federal election, though acting chief electoral officer Stéphane Perrault recently warned any changes applying to 2019 should already be in place. The bill also reverses changes made by the then-Conservative government in 2014, which the Liberals promised to do on the campaign trail. It would allow re ...
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