The constitutional argument

Dave Bartlett reports in today's Telegram on the controverted Paradise election case:

[Curtis] Coombs' lawyer, Eli Baker, filed a motion in Supreme Court arguing a draw is no way to decide a democratic election, and was unconstitutional.

"The (recycling) bucket doesn't get a vote," Baker told The Telegram at the time. "And even more ridiculous, the bucket doesn't have a constitutionally guaranteed right to vote."

But Baker also argued that if a draw is deemed constitutional, there should have been a second one after the judicial recount, instead of letting the original one stand.

The bucket doesn't have the right to vote, true enough. Then again, neither do you, at least not in municipal elections: the constitutional guarantee in s. 3 of the Charter only applies to elections for the House of Commons and provincial and territorial legislatures. Constitutionally, you and the bucket are equals; the municipal franchise is entirely statutory.

But never mind that, whether merely statutory, or constitutionally entrenched, why on earth should the bucket get two votes, when the rest of us only get one?