A petition was presented yesterday on Parliament Hill that had garnered over 50,000 signatures in opposition to the proposed act, with members from the NDP, the Liberal party of Canada, and the Green Party also there to show support of the petition. The petition calls on members of Parliament to stop the U.S.-style voter suppression from becoming Canadian law.

Adam Shedletzky, co-founder of Leadnow.ca, an independent advocacy organization that “brings generations of Canadians together to achieve progress through democracy,” said “There is a groundswell of citizens’ opposition to this rush to rewrite election laws in Canada.”

Many critics say the act, which was designed to combat voting fraud after the scandal of previous elections, such as the infamous Robocall’ scandal in the 2011 federal election, is taking a step backwards rather than tackling the core issues.

“People are calling for the Conservative government to remove measures in the proposed elections law that would suppress the votes of young, aboriginal and low-income people,” says Shedletzky. “Instead, they want the government to address the real threat by giving election watchdogs the power they specifically requested to investigate fraud organized by political operatives.”

The fear is that the new Act will be a mirror case of some of the underhanded tactics used in historical American elections, such as poll taxes and literacy tests that were aimed at restricting the black vote after the American Civil war.

The proposed changes in the act would enforce a mandatory public registry for mass automated election calls, and allow jail time for those convicted of impersonating an election official. It will also remove the “vouching” for the identity of a voter, which allowed 120,000 people to vote in 2011, as well as no longer accept voter identification cards as valid identification, commonly used by youths attending university, seniors, and aboriginals living in reserves.

It’s no wonder, then, that there are worries that the changes will discourage voters when voting is already at an all-time low. However, it’s not just the restriction on identification that is worrying those opposed to the the bill. It will also prohibit the Chief Electoral Officer from engaging in public education or democratic outreach to groups that are less likely to vote. This seems strange from any viewpoint, and as Marc Mayrand, the Chief Electoral Officer says, “there are no other jurisdictions in the world where the electoral body cannot talk about democracy”.

This combined with the almost strong-arm tactics used by the conservative government to introduce the bill, refusing to consult the Chief Electoral Officer, the top expert on election laws, and shutting down debate after only an hour after the Minister introduced it, and many Canadians are wondering who this “fair”act is really aimed at.

Keep an eye out for the upcoming issues of This Magazine, as we follow the Fair Election Act protests over the next few months.

change.org/petitions/hasbro-feature-boys-in-the-packaging-of-the-easy-bake-oven

But instead of settling for an unfairly gendered toy (or something else altogether) for her brother, Pope took a stand. She wrote a letter to the CEO of Hasbro, made a YouTube video (that already has over 112,000 views), and created a petition (that already has over 42,000 signatures). Not bad, eh?

change.org/petitions/hasbro-feature-boys-in-the-packaging-of-the-easy-bake-oven

The petition has gained such traction since it was posted about two weeks ago that a slew of big-name chefs have now made their own YouTube video titled, “Everyone Can Cook.” It features an array of chefs, including Top Chef’s Michael Lomonaco, voicing their support for Pope (and for her brother, who really just wants to be able to cook without using a light bulb or a pink oven). As the petition page, written by McKenna, reads:

Imagine my surprise when I walked into his room to find [my brother] “cooking” tortillas by placing them on top of his lamp’s light bulb! Obviously, this is not a very safe way for him to be a chef, so when he asked Santa for his very own Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven, produced by the Hasbro company, for me to help him be the cook he’s always wanted to be, my parents and I were immediately convinced it was the truly perfect present.

However, we soon found it quite appalling that boys are not featured in packaging or promotional materials for Easy Bake Ovens — this toy my brother’s always dreamed about. And the oven comes in gender-specific hues: purple and pink.

I feel that this sends a clear message: women cook, men work.

I have always been adamantly against anything that promotes specific roles in society for men and women, and having grown up with toys produced by the Hasbro corporation, it truly saddens me that such a successful business would resort to conforming to society’s views on what boys do and what girls do.

I want my brother to know that it’s not “wrong” for him to want to be a chef, that it’s okay to go against what society believes to be appropriate.

Seeing young (like, really young) people take a stand is adorable, but more than that, it’s inspiring. Pope saw that something was off in the world, so she went about setting it right. We can all learn something from Pope about passion and equality and standing up for what you believe in. She’s proof that one person can be turned into an army. (While Hasbro hasn’t made any public comment, Pope’s mother told the Associated Press that McKenna is scheduled to meet with the company on Monday.)

I admit that the problem of boys wanting to play with Easy Bake Ovens had never crossed my mind until Pope made it public, but it makes total sense. There should be a gender-neutral one. We should be encouraging young boys to make food (and do other things they like to do that might be considered “for girls”) as much as we can. Because what’s more attractive than a man who can cook? (No, but, actually?)

Alan Mathison Turing, computing pioneer and forgotten gay icon.

The other day I stumbled across a petition asking that the British government apologize to Alan Turing for “the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended [his] life and career,” and formally acknowledge the significance of his work.

Here’s some background. Alan Turing is most readily associated with the Turing Test, which sought to demonstrate whether a machine could think. The test, basically, involves a text-based conversation a human conducts with another human and with a Turing Machine. If he can’t tell whether he’s conversing with a human or machine, the machine passes the test.

The 1950s paper in which Turing laid out the test, and the conception of intelligence that it embodied, became one of the most influential in philosophical literature. It is still essential to most philosophical discussion of artificial intelligence and the essence of human consciousness.

Even more significantly, Turing was a codebreaker during the Second World War, ultimately devising a machine that could decipher the Germans’ Enigma Code. The Enigma Machine was so useful that some historians claim the information it intercepted hastened the end of the war by as much as two years.

Turing was also gay, a crime for which he was criminally prosecuted and chemically castrated. The conviction ended his career, and at the age of 41 he committed suicide.

Turing’s treatment at the hands of his own government is a detail absent from many histories of his work, and certainly absent from Enigma, the 2001 movie about the development of the codebreaking machine that substitutes Turing with a heterosexual character called Tom Jericho.

It’s particularly gratifying to see the tech community, which launched the campaign and petition, take on the cause of homophobia. And I think, even so many years after the fact, that the apology they are demanding on Turing’s behalf is warranted. Especially when you consider what it might have meant for the Second World War, and for students of the philosophy of mind, if Turing’s conviction had happened earlier in his career, before he could do the work for which he became known.

Of course, Turing was far from the only man to be convicted of “gross indecency” under the act that criminalized homosexuality before it was repealed in 1956 (’76 in Scotland)—Oscar Wilde being the most famous example. With this in mind, I wonder if this petition should go further.

Perhaps we should be asking that an apology be extended to all those who fell afoul of anti-homosexuality laws and had their careers cut short on the cusp of greatness—those whose contributions we will never know.

The petition is available to British residents and expats here: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/turing/