About 35,500 prison inmates eligible to vote in federal election
JOHN COTTER
Mon Jan 2, 4:31 PM ET
EDMONTON (CP) - They are Canada's most captive voters.
Behind razor-wired penitentiary walls and minimum security fences, about 35,500 federal and provincial prison inmates are eligible to cast ballots in the federal election.
This is the second time federal prisoners have been allowed to vote since the Supreme Court struck down part of the Elections Act in 2002. It had been challenged under the charter of rights by a convicted murderer.
The court said voting could teach inmates democratic values and social responsibility.
Shane Shoemaker, serving a life sentence for first-degree murder at Edmonton Institution, agrees.
He and other inmates at the maximum-security prison have been following the campaign on TV in their cells. There are no election posters on the walls. No candidates have come to door-knock.
"Most guys in prison feel like outcasts. Voting is kind of a big thing," says Shoemaker, 30, who hails from Calgary.
"You feel like you are contributing to society."
Shoemaker, who is into the eighth year of his sentence, says most inmates plan to vote for any party other than the Conservatives.
Prisoners fear the Tories want to make life in prison harsher by taking away comforts such as televisions and stereos, he says. They also believe the Conservatives want to strip them of their right to vote.
"We live in a volatile environment and if they start taking these things away from us, it will just create more problems and tensions."
Under Elections Canada rules, inmates will vote with special ballots inside prisons on Jan. 13, 10 days before the general election. They may vote in the riding where they lived before going to prison, in the riding where a relative lives or where they were convicted.
At the Edmonton Institution, guards will shut down activity at the prison on voting day. Elections Canada will send in two returning officers and two polling clerks. One polling station will be set up in the prison's segregation unit and another elsewhere in the facility to handle the rest of the inmates.
Ballots will be sent to Elections Canada in Ottawa in the same way ballots cast by members of the Canadian Forces who are serving abroad are processed. The votes will be included on election night in the designated ridings when results are tallied.
Robby Nowicki, Edmonton Institution's chief administrator, says everything went smoothly during the 2004 election, with 65 of 238 eligible prisoners casting ballots. More are expected to vote this time.
While she hopes the voting process helps inmates, Nowicki said she doesn't support it personally.
"It is one of our basic rights," says the 27-year corrections veteran. "I feel we should have to earn it."
The issue of prisoner voting rights has bounced around in the courts since 1993, when the Progressive Conservative government amended the Canada Elections Act.
The law, which banned inmates serving terms of two years or more from voting, was struck down in 1995 by the Federal Court. Then in 1999, it was upheld in the Federal Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court struck that decision down in 2002.
The Liberals and NDP say they can live with the high court's decision.
The Conservatives say they don't have an official policy, but would favour a constitutional amendment to ban voting by federal prison inmates.
Tory justice critic Vic Toews says Canadians have told him on the campaign trail that they don't believe federal prisoners should have the right to vote.
"What they say to me is that it is wrong that these individuals who have broken their obligations to society are now entitled to have the same voice in society," Toews says.
In the 2004 election, 9,250 of an estimated 35,500 eligible prison voters actually participated - a voting rate of about 26 per cent. The national voter turnout was 61 per cent.
Shoemaker, who has spent most of his adult life in the prison system, says the parties should do more to encourage inmates to take an interest in the political process, including having candidates campaign inside.
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He believes that regardless of their crimes, the more of a stake inmates have in society, the better off everyone will be.
"I am still a human being, I'm still a person. I still have a voice," Shoemaker says.
"Regardless of where I am right now, I will be out some day."
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