Franchise denotes the right to vote in public ELECTIONS for members of Parliament, provincial legislatures and municipal councils. The Canadian franchise dates from the mid-18th-century colonial period when, as a general rule, restrictions effectively limited the vote to male property holders. Since then the particular voting qualifications and the pace of expanding the categories of eligible voters have differed according to jurisdiction and have reflected changing social values and constitutional requirements.
For the first 50 years after Confederation, the federal franchise was manipulated in a blatantly partisan fashion by both national parties. At various times up to 1920 the Dominion franchise was based either on the electoral lists drawn up by the provinces for provincial elections (thereby ensuring that the "national" franchise differed from one province to another) or on a federal list compiled by enumerators appointed by the governing party in Ottawa. From 1867 to 1884 it was based on provincial laws and included a property qualification. The resulting "staggered vote" benefited the Conservative Party, just as the arrangements following the election of the Liberals in 1896 worked to the advantage of the Liberal party.
Canada's most controversial franchise legislation was adopted by Parliament during WWI. The WARTIME ELECTIONS ACT and the Military Voters Act of 1917 enfranchised female relatives of men serving with the Canadian or British armed forces as well as all servicemen (including minors and Indians); it disenfranchised conscientious objectors and British subjects naturalized after 1902 who were born in an enemy country or who habitually spoke an enemy language. Not surprisingly, the government of the time openly admitted that the legislation was biased in its favour and the 1917 election results proved it right. Such abuses and shifts in the policies governing the right to vote ended in 1920 with the adoption by Parliament of an Act establishing a standard Dominion-wide franchise.
Although occasional instances were recorded of women voting in pre-Confederation Nova Scotia and LOWER CANADA between 1809 and 1834, Canadian women were systematically and universally disenfranchised. Apart from their temporary and selective enfranchisement under the Wartime Elections Act, women were first granted the right to vote federally in 1918. Not until 1940 were all Canadian women guaranteed the right to vote provincially. In 1916, Manitoba became the first province to enfranchise women for provincial elections; in 1940, Québec was the last. From the time they first began arriving in the 19th century through much of the first half of the 20th century, most Canadians of Oriental ancestry were denied the right to vote in federal and provincial elections. With the extension of the federal franchise to JAPANESE CANADIANS in 1948, the last statutory disenfranchisement of Orientals was removed. Nonstatus Indians received full voting rights at the provincial level, starting in BC in 1949 and ending with Québec in 1969. The federal franchise was extended to the Inuit in 1950 and to status Indians in 1960.
Canada now has a virtually universal franchise at both the provincial and federal levels. The CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, implemented in 1982, states (s.3) that "every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein." This provision paved the way in the lead-up to the 1988 federal election for the successful court challenge to the denial of the franchise to federal judges and the mentally disabled. The courts struck down the denial of the vote to these groups by accepting the inclusiveness of s.3 of the Charter and ruling that such limitations were not "reasonable" in a "free and democratic society." In 1993, the Canada Elections Act was amended to grant the vote to Canadians living abroad for up to 5 years.
Prison inmates have met with mixed success in their various attempts to gain the vote through Charter challenges in court. In Manitoba, for example, the Court of Queen's Bench struck down provisions in the provincial statute denying prisoners the right to vote. But on appeal, that decision was reserved. Amendments to the Canada Elections Act in 1993 granted the vote to all federal inmates serving less than 2 years. This new law was also successfully challenged in January 1996, thus granting the vote to all prison inmates. As of February 1997, this decision was being appealed by the federal government.
