A man from Beiseker claims he’s received a voter information card, even though he’s not a Canadian citizen.

Paul Gabriel says he is originally from Kent in the United Kingdom, but he’s lived in Canada for the past 20 years and has Permanent Residency status in the Country.

In order to vote in Canada, you must be a Canadian citizen and be at least 18 years old. While Gabriel meets the second qualification, he is not a citizen.

Gabriel says he believes there was an issue when he filed his taxes for 2018. He says normally he and his wife do them, but this year they had a company file on their behalf. Unbeknownst to him, Gabriel says the company checked off that he was a Canadian Citizen and neither he nor the Canada Revenue Agency appears to have caught the issue, leading to the voter information card being sent out.

“What happened is they didn’t bother to check, they just sent out the voting card,” he said. “I looked at it and I thought ‘that’s weird,’ what stops me from voting with it?”

With that card, Gabriel could have gone to a polling station, shown his driver's license and potentially been able to vote illegally. He says he refuses to do that, but this experience highlights some big gaps in the system that he thinks are concerning.

“It’s basically done on a trust basis that you say you are a Canadian Citizen and that you have to show a piece of ID. Well, we don’t live in a very honorable world as far as I’m concerned and although I wouldn’t vote, it made me wonder if people would vote,” Gabriel questioned. “Then suddenly your whole voting system is undermined because you’re relying on somebody’s word alone.”

Gabriel isn’t the only one to experience this either. Lisa Ludlow commented on Gabriel’s Facebook post about this, which has since gone viral, being shared over 14,000 times.

Ludlow says her husband, who is from Australia but has permanent resident status in Canada, has received a voter ID card more than once.

“The last election I took his voter card in with me when I went to vote and I said to them at the polling station ‘he should not be receiving this, he’s not Canadian, he won’t vote’,” said Ludlow.

Ludlow says her concerns aren’t politically motivated. She says this is concerning because it has an impact on the electoral system and it needs to be addressed regardless of who the government in power is.

“I think it should be concerning to everyone. Citizenship and voting, they’re a right and a privilege and he intends to get citizenship and until that day he doesn’t have citizenship, he’s not going to vote,” Ludlow explained. “It’s nothing politically motivated, it’s just wrong, it just shows that there’s problems with our system.”

Elections Canada spokesperson Leanne Nyirfa says it's rare for a non-citizen to receive a voting card, but that it can happen, and it is not unique to this year's election.

"Elections Canada creates our list of registered electors using data from over 40 federal and provincial sources. So there are a few ways that someone could have been mistakenly added to our list," says Nyirfa. "For example, if you check off the Elections Canada box on your income tax form, you would be added to the list. So when we receive information from these other sources, we don't question if a person is a Canadian citizen or not, they are just added to our list of electors."

Nyirfa acknowleges that technically, a non-citizen could vote if they've received a voter information card.

"This isn't a ticket to vote, it's an information card that tells you where your polling location is. And there's also signage at all of our polling locations that state that you must be 18 and you must be a Canadian citizen to vote," says Nyirfa. "It's important to know if you've received a voter information card in the mail and you're not a Canadian citizen, it's not illegal to receive that card, but of course it is illegal to vote if you're a non-Canadian citizen. So we do ask that you contact Elections Canada and let us know that you've received this in error and we will remove your name from the register," Nyirfa says.

"I want to note too that for the first time with this election, Elections Canada will have access to information from Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Canada. So we will be cross referencing people who have voted on our list with the list that we receive of Canadian citizens from that federal department. So if there are cases where we find that a non-Canadian citizen has voted, those cases would be referred to the Commissioner of Canada Elections. They're the ones that are responsible for enforcing the Canada Elections Act. So under the Act, it is illegal to vote if you're not a Canadian citizen. The Commissioner would look into that and assign penalties as they see fit," says Nyirfa.

According to the Election Canada website, under the Canada Elections Act, electors must be registered and prove their identity and address in order to vote. They are not required to show documents to prove their Canadian citizenship when they register or vote at the federal level. However, when electors register, they are required to declare that they are 18 years of age or older and a Canadian citizen, either directly or indirectly.

It is illegal under the Canada Elections Act for a non-citizen to vote or to apply to register to vote, knowing they are not eligible. It is not an offence for a non-citizen or anyone under 18 to be registered in error.

Elections Canada states that in order to ensure people understand the legal requirements to register and vote, the eligibility criteria can be found in several places, such as:

  • Voter registration notification letters, mailed periodically to potential electors
  • Voter registration request forms
  • Voter information cards, mailed to registered electors three weeks before election day
  • The reminder brochure, mailed to every household in the country two weeks before election day
  • A poster in every voting place
  • Elections Canada's website, including our Online Voter Registration Service
  • Other Elections Canada information products, such as pamphlets, presentations, Voter' Guide