So, this is a break in procedure. For one, it’s not December. For mother, this doesn’t involve a poem. Just a long, vexed rant. Settle in.

We were born in Canada. Except for an eight-year sting in Britain, we have always lived in Canada. Even when in Britain, we voted by post. Okay. We tried. Canada sent our ballot after the election, making it approximately as useful as a chocolate teapot on a hot July picnic.

We mention this because a radio campaign promoted us to check if we were registered with Elections Canada. We trot off to the website, give our name, birthdate, residence, citizenship….and it can’t confirm we are eligible to vote. NB: we voted in the last election. So this is a bit weird.

But Elections Canada wants to register us so we can vote June 24. Fine. We fill in all the relevant info again. Name. Birth date. Citizenship. Address. Then it wants ID. There’s a whole whack of options, most of which, like your health card, no one wants to upload online because it’s easily nicked by fraudsters. In fact, everyone says to never hand over your health card to avoid identity theft. That’s okay, you can use your driver’s licence. Assuming you are not, as we are, legally blind.

Notably absent from this list is the Photo ID Card. When Service Ontario talked us into this card, it was billed as a driver’s licence for the non-driving. Except it’s not. It took until 2022 for it to be accepted as valid ID for anyone renewing their health card. And you can’t, apparently, use it to register to vote.

Elections Canada, we have to ask: Are you trying to discriminate against the legally blind? Do you not want us to vote? Do you realise the failure to include that Photo ID card could look like a violation of the AODA to the casual observer? Does that make you feel you’ve done your job well?

It makes us livid. It’s hard enough to vote with sight loss. You have just complicated that. Our only regret, is that whoever we vote for, we can’t vote Elections Canada out. Shame.