It's a simple question of democracy.

Do voters deserve to know if the candidates on their ballot in the federal election actually live in the riding?

Or should ridings simply being treated as a dumping ground for political parties to run their preferred candidates, even if they live on the other side of town?

This issue has troubled me for many years.

One of the most egregious examples at the provincial level is Vancouver-Fraserview. I'm not sure that it's ever had an MLA who actually lived in the constituency since it was created in 1991.

I do know this: this pocket of southeast Vancouver has been represented over the years by residents of Tsawwassen, Kitsilano, Shaughnessy, Kerrisdale, and Richmond.

Before Don Davies was elected in Vancouver Kingsway in 2008, its MP lived outside of the riding. That MP's predecessor lived near Spanish Banks on the farthest reaches of the city's West Side. The current Liberal candidate in Vancouver Kingsway doesn't live in the riding.

Here's my problem with all of this—voters are not explicitly told if their candidate lives in the riding.

They can only discover this if they stumble across someone revealing this in the media.

This decoupling of politicians from the people they represent in Parliament is symptomatic of the centralization of political power through parties and their leaders. This trend has been intensifying for decades.

On many occasions, parties don't even go through the charade of holding a nomination contest where voters who actually live in the riding can choose their preferred party's candidate.

It's fine to talk about fixed election dates as a means of strengthening democracies.

But what ever happened to informing voters of something as basic as whether a candidate lives within the riding's boundaries?

If somebody can't be bothered to even live in the riding that they represent, why shouldn't that be communicated to voters by Elections Canada?

There's an easy way to do this: simply put an asterisk beside the names of candidates who don't list an address in the riding as their primary residence.

Then when voters go to the Elections Canada website and look up the names of the candidates in their riding, it will become clear that these people are parachute candidates. They're likely not as connected to the local businesses, schools, community groups, and, yes, homeless people as those candidates who live there.

Better yet, put the asterisk on the ballot beside the names of parachute candidates. Then voters entering the pollling booth will know that these are candidates have been imported by political parties.

A simple reform like this would force parties to start treating the voters with more respect.

Who knows? It might even bring back that long-lost paragon of democracy: local nomination meetings.