Voting rights of imprisoned persons: what about 23 years later?

It’s voting day this Wednesday for people who are incarcerated. In federal detention centers, they can exercise this right since 2002. But how is it, 23 years later?

Senator Bernadette Clément recently decided to take an interest in the subject in federal detention centers to understand the electoral challenges that still remain in prison. She who was inspired by a visit to the penitentiary Collins Bay In Kingston later visited nine detention centers across the country to talk about politics and election.

There are even people who recognized me because they had seen me making a speech in the Senate. So it is not most Canadians who will recognize senators, but these people have time, they are inside and they watch television, so they follow politicsexplains Bernadette Clément.

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A lack of information

During her tour, the senator says she has noted a great challenge for access to detainees.

Inmates do not have access to the Internet and therefore information must go through television programs, word of mouth, between prisoners and their family outside or newspapers. And there too, it will depend on the budgets of librariesshe says, believing that the latter do not have access to neutral information.

Ils [les personnes détenues] really wanted to have information directly from the parties to be able to be well informed before voting. And so without internet access, it’s complicated.

Ms. Clément is currently writing a report to make recommendations so that adequate conditions can be set up for the right to vote for detained persons.

This is important because there is always a question of rehabilitation, a question of contact with the outside. The detainees are there for all kinds of reasons of course, but that does not mean that their life and contact with their family and their community outside must stopshe says.

The senator will be at the penitentiary Collins Bay, On Wednesday, in Kingston to observe the voting of prisoners on election day.

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20 years of combat

In Canada, detainees have been deprived of the right to vote since 1898. It was not until 1993 that prisoners serving sentences under two years old had the right to vote. It took 20 years of combat from the former detainee Richard Sauvé and two passages in the Supreme Court to change things in 2002.

The starting point of this legal battle started from the impossibility for Mr. Sauvé to be able to vote, while he was serving a life prison sentence for murder.

It was not just a personal concern [de voter]. There are so many people in prison who already feel marginalized, Aboriginal people, racialized people, they already feel that they are apart from societyhe said.

I felt that we had the right to express ourselves. If you are not happy with the way the government manages things, this is your opportunity to express yourself.

Like Senator Clément, Richard Sauvé also reports that detainees are interested in political life as the elections approached.

Believe it or not, especially during the electoral period, the policy brings you outside the prison. People talk about politics in prison, they talk about electoral platforms and sometimes even more than in society in generalhe argues.

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Released after 17 years in prison, Richard Sauvé continues to help those detained as a worker for the company St-Leonard in Canada [Traduction libre : St. Leonard’s Society of Canada] and the penitentiary law clinic of the University Queen’s University [Traduction libre : Queen’s Prison Law Clinic].

Today he wants a better perception of imprisoned people.

If we continue to tell people in prison that they are not worthy of having civil rights, they are told that they are not worthy of the community. This is the way that people imprisoned see things.

A special vote

Canadian prisoners of voting [18 ans] Can prevail their voting rights at each election or referendum by registering beforehand on the electoral list. The latter thus vote by special bulletin in the establishment where they are incarcerated 12 days before the date of the ballot.

This bulletin bearing the name of the chosen candidate then goes into a first envelope, then in a second in which the name of the voter as well as his address are identifiable. The vote is finally redirected to the right constituency in a third envelope.

We vote by special bulletin when we are far from his constituency like voters abroad. For incarcerated voters, we want their vote to count from where they come and not from where they are incarceratedexplains the spokesperson for Elections Canada, Serge Flyfel.

To determine the electoral district of the detained person, Elections Canada trusts either at the last residence before his imprisonment, or to the address of a family member, or instead of his arrest or, in the last court where his sentence was pronounced. This peculiarity would be due to the fact that some detainees sometimes find it difficult to declare their usual place of residence.

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Regarding the vote in question, it is also a whole specific process with in particular the appointment of an electoral liaison agent who is responsible for the good hold of the ballot.

The liaison agent is someone who comes from the prison institution and who will organize the election inside. It is he who will ensure that those who want to vote are on the electoral list and that they can vote as for a candidate of their constituencyindicates Mr. Flyfel.

In 2021, Elections Canada recorded 34,000 incarcerated voters, including 14,000 voters, or a participation rate of 41 %. This year, the institution has identified 8100 voters incarcerated in 48 penitentiary centers in Quebec. In Ontario, 13,700 voters incarcerated in 57 establishments have been registered.

With the information of Maude Ouellet and Daniel Taekema of CBC News