Harper's Tories go the Tea Party/Dixiecrat Route

So more people are speaking up about the new proposed Fair Elections Act Bill. Some of the things are decent like nudging the cap on campaign donations up and end to toothless result blackouts. However, the Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand has read and has offered an interpretation of what it will mean for his office and its sounding a bit ominous.

The Fair Elections Act says it "limits the chief electoral officer's power to provide information to the public."

Under the proposed bill, the only role of the chief electoral officer would be to inform the public of when, where, and how to vote.

Elections Canada would be forbidden from launching ad campaigns encouraging Canadians to vote. Surveys and research would be forbidden under the new bill, Mayrand said.

"Most of the research will no longer be published because these are communications to the public."

Click to expand...

Other rule changes regarding the CEO's office include limiting programs to promote youth voting (people voting between the ages 18-25.)

The Ottawa Citizen's editorial board is not taking a friendly tack to this, instead seeing the bill as pussy-footing over and sweeping under the carpet the scandals of the last election.

One might have thought that when the Conservative government finally got around to reforming election law, it would be to try to prevent the kind of voter suppression and electoral fraud Canada saw in the 2011 election. But when they said they would make it harder to break the rules, it seems they were talking about cracking down on homeless voters, not party bagmen.

Click to expand...

But hey, if all goes well, Ted Cruz might no longer have to worry about revoking his Canadian citizenship. The Tories will do it for him.

Haven't heard that complaint, but it would not surprise me too much either.

Tories cut debate on bill short and head onto first vote.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/election-reform-bill-still-on-the-fast-track-1.2531003