Canada PoliticsParties in upcoming election include pirates, potheads & pro-lifers
Federal elections in Canada may seem like a perpetual three-way race, but voters who feel disenfranchised by the mainstream parties do have a choice.
There are 18 parties registered in the upcoming federal election — parties representing the pirates, the potheads and the pro-lifers, just to name a few.
Here’s a look at some of them.
Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada
Established: 2005
Leader: Liz White
Number of candidates: N/A
Slogan: We are North America’s first federal political party dedicated solely to the protection of all animals and the environment.
Platform highlights: Against the seal hunt and cosmetic testing on animals. Considers the Green Party too “mainstream.”
Marijuana Party
Established: 2000
Leader: Blair T. Longley
Number of candidates: ran five candidates in the 2011 election; ran 73 candidates in the 2000 election
Slogan: Stop criminalizing cannabis
Of note: Longley says marijuana is “the single best plant on the planet for people, for food, fiber, fun and medicine” and it has been “demonized.”
“Only a culture that was crazy and corrupt to the core would have criminalized cannabis,” he says.
Missed opportunity: To be called the Party Party
Pirate Party of Canada
Established: 2010
Leader: Roderick Lim
Number of candidates: five affirmed – one each in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick
Platform highlights: Disappointingly, the Pirate Party is not about wearing eye patches and carrying a parrot on your shoulder but rather about piracy of intellectual property — they’re for it. Open data, looser copyright and patent laws, net neutrality and greater privacy for individuals are their priorities.
Of note: In November 2010, the party ran its first candidate, Jeff Coleman, in a Winnipeg North byelection. He received 94 votes — faring better than both the Communist Party and the Christian Heritage Party candidates.
In the last federal election, the party ran 10 candidates and received a total of 3,198 votes.
Communist Party of Canada
Established: 1997
Leader: Miguel Figueroa
Number of candidates: N/A
Slogan: Put people’s needs before corporate greed (unofficial)
Of note: Party leader Figueroa won a landmark case in the Supreme Court of Canada when he challenged 1993 changes to the Elections Act that stipulated parties had to field at least 50 candidates to have official party status and all the benefits that go with it. In 2003, the top court agreed with Figueroa that the requirement was unconstitutional and struck it down, but by then Parliament had amended the Elections Act again to lower the federal party status threshold to 12 candidates. After 13 years of litigation, the party reached an out-of-court settlement for the government to pay $65,000 in costs.
Christian Heritage Party of Canada
Established: 2001
Leader: Rodney L. Taylor
Number of candidates: 11 so far — all but three of them in Ontario
Slogan: “Canada’s only pro-life political party”
Platform: Abortion as an economic issue: “Approximately 900,000 babies have been killed by abortion since the Conservatives have been in power. Had they been born, they would have added to the nation’s economic growth, first as consumers and later as producers,” Taylor says on the party’s website.
Of note: Taylor plans to run in the riding of Ottawa West-Nepean, left vacant when Conservative MP John Baird left politics earlier this year.
Party for Accountability, Competency and Transparency (PACT)
Established: 2012
Leader: Michael Nicula
Number of candidates: N/A
Platform highlights: Also goes by the name Online Party. Wants to hold online referenda about major policy issues like abortion, euthanasia and Canada’s military involvement abroad. Also wants to overhaul health care, education, infrastructure, the economy and governance.
Bridge Party of Canada
Established: 2015
Leader: David Berlin
Number of candidates: N/A
Slogan: “Face it…fix it.”
Platform highlights: Aims to expand the “collective conversation” by dispensing entirely with the current patriarchal system, in which a handful of people make all the important decisions, and reduce the government to a more “administrative” role. Wants cabinet ministers to be elected, not appointed.
Rhinoceros Party
Established: 2007, successor to the defunct Rhinoceros Party of Canada
Leader: Sébastien Côrriveau a.k.a. CorRhino
Number of candidates: 10 slated for 2015; ran 11 candidates in 2011
Platform highlights: Irreverent group of satirists that promises to repeal the Law of Gravity. Also wants to tax the black market, privatize the Queen and run a Canada-wide lottery for Senate seats.
Of note: Last month, after floor-crossing Conservative MP Eve Adams lost the Liberal nomination in the Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence, the Rhinoceros Party sent out a news release offering her “the riding of her choice” in the Greater Toronto Area. CorRhino also promised to “rig the nomination race in her favour.”
