{"id":40660,"date":"2017-10-31T03:00:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T07:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=40660"},"modified":"2017-11-08T11:05:50","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T16:05:50","slug":"we-may-no-longer-refer-to-a-last-place-candidate-as-having-lost-their-deposit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/10\/31\/we-may-no-longer-refer-to-a-last-place-candidate-as-having-lost-their-deposit\/","title":{"rendered":"We may no longer refer to a last-place candidate as having “lost their deposit”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colby Cosh<\/a> on a recent court ruling in that hotbed of radical democracy, the Alberta Queen’s Bench, declaring candidate deposits for federal elections to be unconstitutional:<\/p>\n

Deposits are a tradition in Canadian federal elections as old as the ballot itself, dating to 1874. But Queen\u2019s Bench Justice Avril Inglis\u2019s ruling suggests that their days are probably numbered. They were introduced for the purpose, stated at the time and very often re-stated since, of deterring frivolous candidates for office. Before the year 2000, you needed to hand over $1,000 to run in a federal election: you got half back automatically if you complied with the Ps and Qs of election law, and the other half if you got at least 15 per cent of the vote.<\/p>\n

This practice ran into trouble when (literal) communists litigated against it, arguing that it impeded the Charter rights of the poor and humble to participate in elections. Parliament acknowledged this by making the full $1,000 refundable, so talking heads no longer speak of \u201cforfeiting one\u2019s deposit\u201d on election night. But the government continued to take the view that the \u201cfrivolous\u201d need to be discouraged from pursuing federal candidacies. This was not really a satisfying rectification of the Charter issue, as Kieran Szuchewycz, an Edmontonian with some legal experience, seems to have noticed.<\/p>\n

The truth is that Szuchewycz (who, for all I know, could be the guy who mops my local 7-Eleven) ran circles around the Department of Justice lawyers who turned up to oppose him. Justice Inglis has ruled that the $1,000 deposit fails almost every point of the Oakes test for laws that impinge on Charter rights. She found that \u201cpreserving the legitimacy of the electoral process\u201d is an important objective, but the connection between having a grand lying around and being a \u201cserious\u201d candidate is not clear.<\/p>\n

Szuchewycz observed that nowhere in the literature defending election deposits is \u201cseriousness\u201d or \u201cfrivolousness\u201d defined. Nobody can point to an example of any harm arising from the existence of even admittedly frivolous candidates, like the long-established Rhinos.<\/p>\n

And, well, the deposit doesn\u2019t seem to discourage the Rhinos, does it? If you are well-heeled but \u201cfrivolous\u201d you can afford the deposit. If you are in earnest, but broke, it\u2019s a problem. And there are other \u201cseriousness\u201d tests in election law, notably the requirement for candidates to gather nominating signatures from riding residents. So what\u2019s the thousand bucks for specifically?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update, 8 November<\/strong>: Elections Canada is respecting the Alberta Queen’s Bench decision and no longer requires candidates in federal elections to submit a deposit<\/a>. H\/T again to Colby Cosh<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colby Cosh on a recent court ruling in that hotbed of radical democracy, the Alberta Queen’s Bench, declaring candidate deposits for federal elections to be unconstitutional: Deposits are a tradition in Canadian federal elections as old as the ballot itself, dating to 1874. But Queen\u2019s Bench Justice Avril Inglis\u2019s ruling suggests that their days are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,53],"tags":[715,188,198],"class_list":["post-40660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-politics","tag-constitution","tag-electionwatch","tag-equalrights"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-azO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40660"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40790,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40660\/revisions\/40790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}