Chicago friend of this blog Mark Reynolds has a commentary up at the CBC News site, arguing that expat Canadians like himself should NOT have the voting rights recently granted to them.Citizenship requires investment. Democracy is people together deciding how they, within the boundaries a mari usque ad mare, should govern ourselves. Giving non-residents the vote is roughly akin to giving people the right to tell their former roommates how to set their thermostats. It is the difference between deciding with and deciding for.His argument for the link between community and voting may also, without his stressing it, be applicable to proportional representation, another process by which votes are divorced from locality.
Update, October 17: Alan B. McCullough demurs:
Mark Reynolds’ metaphor - Giving non-residents the vote is roughly akin to giving people the right to tell their former roommates how to set their thermostats. - is weak. Roommates are typically renters; Canadians, whether living in Canada or elsewhere, are co-owners. And, like the PM says, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.
