Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Supreme Court To Rule on Blackout Law

The Supreme Court of Canada will release its decision tomorrow morning at 9:45 am EST on Paul Bryan’s constitutional challenge to the federal government’s election “blackout” law.

Paul -- with the financial support of the National Citizens Coalition -- is challenging an archaic and undemocratic law which bans the transmission of voting results on election night.

Section 329 of the Canada Elections Act, makes it an offence to broadcast or otherwise transmit voting results from parts of the country where the polls are closed to parts of the country where the polls are still open.

I hope the Court rules in favour of freedom tomorrow and strikes down this law.

Simply put, there is no justification for this kind of blackout law in a free society. The government has no business banning the flow of political information.

Several media outlets including the CBC, CTV, CanWest News, Sun Media, Canadian Press and the Globe and Mail intervened in this case to support Bryan’s constitutional position.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association also intervened to support his stand.

1 comment:

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

I hope the law also gets struck down. I would like to see how things are in Atlantic Canada next election to get an idea of what is to come. Although Atlantic Canada won't necessarily side with the winner, whichever party is gaining or losing seats may give a hint as to how things are going. More importantly if you look at the shift between 2004 and 2006 in Atlantic Canada and transposed those numbers to Ontario you would have had the Tories picking up far more seats than they did in Atlantic Canada.