by Eva van Loon

The folks at BC Elections will likely be coming to get me when this is published.

If they don’t, they’ll fail to apply uniformly the registration provisions of the Elections Act for “third-party advertisers” during an election period.

All I need to do is criticise the government. Peculiar as it may seem to us ordinary folk, “advertisement” includes criticism. Criticising Candidate A means the speaker supports Candidate B, and that’s advertising, ladies and gentlemen.

That’s doublespeak, if you ask me. And I suggest a governmental toe has been set on the path to fascism with this outrageous requirement to register before ordinary citizens can comment on their government.

This writer could be fined up to ten grand for that suggestion, even though neither I nor this magazine promotes any particular candidate or party in the more–or–less upcoming May provincial election. In an election period, nasty threatening letters can be sent to any group, organised or dis-, that wants changes and has the gall to say so publicly.

Just ask the loosely associated group Renters at Risk in the Lower Mainland, who had the temerity to put up some posters advertising their planned discussion for changes they want. They don’t even have a chairperson—but they’re advertising, yessir, plain as day.

Election advertising is “advertising used during a campaign period to promote or oppose, directly or indirectly, the election of a candidate or a registered political party.”

“Our review of the Renters at Risk Campaign website during the campaign periods of the Vancouver-Burrard and Vancouver-Fairview by-elections identified several instances of messaging that appeared to be election advertising,” the letter to Renters at Risk said. “This determination was based on materials on your website that describe past and current issues and legislation, associates them with registered political parties, and directly or indirectly takes a promotional or oppositional position.”

Renters At Risk is being treated the same as any other group that promotes a position before an election, said Kenn Faris, a spokesperson for Elections B.C. The group’s materials used slogans like “send the government a message” that imply people should vote for one party over another, he suggested.

How did this heinous piece of legislation slide in under our noses?And what the heck happened to our Charter right of freedom of speech? What country are we in, again?

Is the following opinion an advertisement, BC Elections? I think whoever the author of these registration provisions is should never, ever be allowed to hold public office again, anywhere in Canada, anytime, because he, she, or it missed one basic fact in school: Canada is a democracy, complete with constitution and Charter of Rights. The right to criticise our governments is embedded in the Charter—and that ain’t advertising!

How could they cheapen our Charter so?

Registration is free, BC Elections hasten to assure us. No big deal.

Sure. The Jews in Europe in the forties didn’t have to pay for their cute yellow stars when they registered, either.

Will someone volunteer to put up a website to monitor my stay in jail over this? Or shall we pull a Denmark* on these dummies—everybody and his dog, register as an election advertiser!

*The (possibly apocryphal) story of how 90% of Denmark’s Jews were spared the Holocaust tells how King Christian X himself wore the star and encouraged all his citizens to do so. –Editor.