Letter to Procedures and House Affairs Committee (Parliament of Canada) Re Longest Ballot Committee hearings

To: Procedures and House Affairs Committee, Parliament of Canada

Re: Longest Ballot Committee Hearings

Dear PROC members,

I was a candidate for the Longest Ballot Committee in a 2023 Winnipeg by-election but before then was a candidate for the Communist Party of Canada in two federal elections, one of which was the one where your committee chair MP Chris Bittle was first elected. I think my MP will agree that I am a serious candidate based on the one candidate’s debate I was included in. I resigned from the Communist Party a year before I ran for the Longest Ballot Committee and am not a member of any political party now.

As someone who has been an election candidate with a physical disability, it is perverse that changes being considered to serve voters with disabilities would actually make it more difficult for candidates with disabilities. Voting is important for participating in elections, but so is running for office.

Gathering 100 signatures is not easy, and raising the limit would make what is almost impossible even closer to being impossible. Passing around petitions at association meetings, as was mentioned in your meetings, is a luxury enjoyed by candidates from large political parties. For those running as independents or for smaller political parties, getting any signature is difficult because voters who are already involved with other political parties fear they could be seen as disloyal for signing the nomination form for another candidate. In the federal elections I ran in, nearly half my time was spent gathering signatures (and the other half was spent trying to get included in debates).

Requiring only one official agent per candidate (even per riding) is also another unfair barrier. The work of an official agent requires some specialized knowledge and expertise, and if this work is not done properly a candidate might be barred from running in a future election. This is why some small parties already have only one official agent for all candidates, to ensure that the work is done properly. Requiring every candidate in a riding to have a different official agent is an unfair barrier because there are only so many people available who have the capacity and availability to serve this important function. Having someone who cannot do the work well could mean the penalty of not being able to run again.

Please keep in consideration the right of people with disabilities to run for office, not just to vote. As you heard in your meetings many countries handle very long ballots with no problems for voters with disabilities. You should accommodate voters with disabilities without perversely adding barriers in their name that take away their ability to effectively run for office.

Sincerely,

Saleh Waziruddin