(The following article is from the October 1-15, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Welcoming the decision to include Elizabeth May in the Oct. 1-2 televised leaders' debates, Communist Party of Canada leader Miguel Figueroa said the attempted exclusion of the Green Party exposed just how tilted the electoral playing field is in Canada.

     "The electoral rules are made by those parties already in Parliament, with the clear, cynical and self-serving intent of keeping every other political party out," said Figueroa in a news release. "That's why Canadians understood and reacted so angrily to the exclusion of Elizabeth May.

     "The feeble argument that smaller parties be excluded because they lack public support has been clearly exposed as a lie. The real reason for excluding the small parties is the vested interests of the big established parties to permanently marginalize other parties by denying or minimizing their public exposure. They are afraid that given the opportunity to actually hear from other parties, many voters might shift their support to those with policies more closely in line with their own views on such crucial issues as climate change, peace, jobs, Canadian sovereignty, democracy, and social programs.

     "The evidence of such crass self-interest was reflected in the actions of the Mulroney government in 1993 when it pushed through C-114 (with the unanimous support of the Liberals and NDP) to raise new, anti-democratic barriers to the participation of the Communist Party other small parties at the federal level. Undoing much of this draconian legislation fell to the Communist Party which fought 10 years in the courts - right up to the Supreme Court of Canada - to finally win in law what was won in the court of public opinion at the very outset.

     "More electoral `reforms' have been pushed through by the Tories and Liberals, to sharply restrict fundraising by parties without representation in the House of Commons, while handing tens of millions of dollars annually in public transfers and subsidies to large, established parties. These parties have voted to give themselves millions of dollars every year from the public treasury, while squandering public funds to fight the small parties in the courts over this policy.

     "The `in-and-out' affair is also evidence that the Tories are willing to break the law in order to steal an election if that's what's required. No wonder the public is angry. This electoral tinkering has contributed in large measure to the growth of public cynicism about parliamentary politics witnessed for many years.

     "Broad public debate over national policy issues is what elections are about.  This is exactly what the Big Business parties, and to its shame the NDP, are trying to block. Canadian electors have the right to hear from all registered political parties, and to make their own decisions about which parties and which candidates they choose to support.

     "No one - not the government, not the opposition parties, not the networks - have the right to screen out some views, to determine which are and which are not suitable for prime-time. Canadians expect all political parties to uphold and protect their fundamental, democratic and electoral rights."

     The Communist Party of Canada is committed to protect and expand democratic electoral rights by:

* amending the Broadcast Act to legislate equal time for all political parties;

* amending the Canada Elections Act to rescind public subsidies to political parties, lift undemocratic restrictions on fundraising, and to impose steep limits on election spending;

* enacting proportional representation;

* reducing the voting age to 16; and

* restoring universal voter enumeration, to help restore the franchise to thousands of Canadians whose voting rights are denied by recent electoral changes.