{"id":8154,"date":"2014-04-27T18:42:59","date_gmt":"2014-04-27T10:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=8154"},"modified":"2014-04-27T18:42:59","modified_gmt":"2014-04-27T10:42:59","slug":"protests-held-against-harper-governments-controversial-elections-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/04\/27\/protests-held-against-harper-governments-controversial-elections-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests held against Harper government’s controversial elections bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"stephen<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo: Facebook Page of PM Stephen Harper<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TORONTO – Protests are scheduled for cities across Canada today against the Harper government’s contentious elections bill.<\/p>\n

A few dozen people clutched signs and unrolled a banner during a demonstration in downtown Toronto.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Organizer Anna Goldfinch says that despite the Tories’ pledge on Friday to strip the bill of some of its most contentious aspects, such as a residency ID requirement, the proposed legislation still goes too far and should be scrapped outright.<\/p>\n

She says an Elections Canada pilot project to encourage turnout on post-secondary campuses will not go ahead if the bill is passed.<\/p>\n

Protester Andrew Porter also pointed to the bill imposing restrictions on Elections Canada’s outreach work as a continuing cause for concern.<\/p>\n

Events were held in a number of communities in Canada including Vancouver where a handful of activists tried to persuade people to sign a petition.<\/p>\n

Goldfinch, an executive member with the Canadian Federation of Students’s Ontario branch, said that even with the changes the government has agreed to, the bill will still discourage election turnout.<\/p>\n

“I still think there’s so much in this bill that really does a lot to suppress voting, to not encourage people to get out and vote,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: Facebook Page of PM Stephen Harper   TORONTO – Protests are scheduled for cities across Canada today against the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":8155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1145],"tags":[273],"class_list":["post-8154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-headline","tag-stephen-harper","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}