At least 91 candidates will be running in the September 16 by-election in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, according to Elections Canada, which is a record.
Some 79 of them are affiliated with the Longer Ballot Committee, a group that is protesting Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system. The group wants a citizens’ assembly to address electoral reform because it believes political parties are too reluctant to make government more representative of the electorate’s diverse views.
The final list from Elections Canada will be available Wednesday. Coalition organizer and leader of the satirical Rhinoceros party, Sébastien “CoRhino” Corriveau, hopes the campaign will raise awareness about electoral reform and proportional representation.
“It’s a ridiculous way to do things,” he said. “But we’ve tried other methods before and they all failed.” Corriveau said that when committee members went door-to-door asking for signatures to put potential candidates on the ballot, one in two people signed the documents.
“The electoral system is not the daily concern of anyone in Canada right now, but people agree that it needs to change,” he said.
Already seen
On June 24, results from a by-election in Toronto-St. Paul’s were delayed for several hours after 84 candidates registered to run, including 77 with ties to the committee.
Elections Canada printed ballots nearly a metre long, with two columns of names. The agency said that compared to regular elections, the huge ballots took longer to unfold and count, and more ballot boxes were needed to hold them.
Ultimately, the final tally was not released until after 4 a.m. the next day, when results showed Conservative candidate Don Stewart had unseated the Liberals, who had held the riding for more than 30 years.
Corriveau said he hoped he would not influence the outcome of the election, but he said the group wanted to highlight the inconvenience it poses to voters. “The system is rigged and the rules are written by the winner,” he said.
Many candidates who ran in Toronto are back on the ballot in Montreal, including Donovan Eckstrom, an Albertan who describes himself on Facebook as the “candidate for an independent Alberta with LaSalle-Émard-Verdun.”
In a video posted on Facebook, Mr. Eckstrom promises to “replace all Quebec dairy cows with high-quality Alberta beef” if he is elected.
Another familiar name is Félix-Antoine Hamel, who made headlines in June for being the first candidate in Canadian electoral history to receive no votes.
A backlash after the abandonment of electoral reform?
Dennis Pilon, chair of the politics department at York University, said advocates of electoral reform have been frustrated by the reluctance of Canada’s major political parties to change the country’s electoral system.
In 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that this would be the last federal election with the first-past-the-post system, but he broke his promise in 2017.
“What we’re seeing here is that when rational discussion doesn’t work, advocates of change turn to mockery,” Pilon said. “Individual voters may be somewhat put off by having to wade through a huge ballot to find their choice. But on the other hand, we often talk about the need for citizens to mobilize […] and it is a form of commitment.”
Mr. Corriveau said he did not know whether the committee would campaign in the next election.
The by-election follows the resignation of former Liberal MP and cabinet minister David Lametti, who had held the position since 2015. Former prime minister Paul Martin held the seat of LaSalle-Émard, which was the predecessor to the current riding, from 1988 to 2011.
The Liberals’ declining political popularity could put the riding back in play this time around, with some polls suggesting a three-way race between the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.
The Liberal candidate is Montreal city councillor Laura Palestini, whose selection angered other aspiring candidates who were unhappy that the party chose not to hold an open nomination process.
The NDP has nominated Craig Sauvé, another Montreal city councillor, while the Bloc candidate is Louis-Philippe Sauvé, a longtime party member. Business owner Louis Ialenti is running for the Conservatives.
The byelection will mark the next major test for the Liberals after their surprise defeat to the Conservatives in Toronto-St. Paul’s.