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Donald Sutherland says as a Canadian he should be allowed to vote

Donald Sutherland, if you’re reading this, Elections Canada wants to hear from you.

The Canadian-born actor is on the list of Genie Award winners, Order of Canada recipients and Canada’s Walk of Fame honorees, but there’s one list he’s not on: Canada’s list of voters.

“I’m an expatriate and the Harper government won’t let expatriates participate in Canadian elections,” the actor wrote in a letter published Tuesday in the Globe and Mail.

“I’m not dual anything. I’m Canadian,” the Governor General’s Award winner continued.

His comments come on the heels of an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling last week that Canadians who have lived abroad for more than five years can be barred from voting in federal elections. In a split decision, the judges said the Elections Canada rule is a “reasonable” infringement on expats’ constitutional rights.

“Permitting all non-resident citizens to vote would allow them to participate in making laws that affect Canadian residents on a daily basis but have little to no practical consequences for their own daily lives,” Chief Justice George Strathy wrote in the decision, overturning a Superior Court of Ontario ruling in May 2014 by Justice Michael Penny.

Strathy noted that although more than a million expats were entitled to vote in the 2011 election, only some 6,000 did.

The two Canadians, who live in the United States and challenged the regulation, will keep fighting for the right to vote; they intend to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

“We’re hoping we have good basis for the court to hear our case…because of the strong lower court judgment and the strong dissenting judgment,” said Shaun O’Brien, one of the lawyers representing Montreal-born Jamie Duong and Toronto native Gillian Frank.

Strathy and Justice David Brown acknowledged that the restriction does violate the Charter but said it is a “reasonable limit” on the constitutional right to vote. Justice John Laskin dissented, holding that the restriction was not justified.

An Elections Canada spokesperson said the agency is just following the law.

“We are required to administer the Canada Elections Act as enacted by Parliament and interpreted by the courts,” Denise Benson told Yahoo Canada News. “Although it was a decision of an Ontario court, as is its practice, Elections Canada applied the court’s ruling across Canada.“

Sutherland thinks there’s something more sinister at work.

“And this new ‘Canada,’ this Canadian government that has taken the true Canada’s place, has furiously promoted a law that denies its citizens around the world the right to vote. Why? Is it because they’re afraid we’ll vote to return to a government that will once again represent the values that the rest of the world looked up to us for? Maybe.”

O’Brien won’t go that far but said at least one NDP MP supports scrapping the restriction.

“I do find it surprising the government would fight this as vehemently as they have,” she said. “And I do wonder…when low voter turnout is a problem in society, why they would limit voting from people who are passionate about the country.”

To be eligible to vote, a Canadian must “have resided abroad for less than five consecutive years,” the Canada Elections Act says.

If, as Sutherland said, he and his wife live here "all the time we can” and have a family house in Canada, he might just be able to get on the election rolls.

Benson said she could not comment on the case of any individual elector but, asked how Sutherland could get on the International Register of Electors, she said: “We would encourage them to contact Elections Canada so we can give them the information that corresponds to their own circumstances.”