Protest group eyes Montreal byelection
Ran 77 candidates in Toronto vote last month
OTTAWA • As the clock ticks down for the prime minister to announce a date for a federal byelection in suburban Montreal, an ongoing — and record-breaking — election protest is ready to once again elongate the contest’s ballot.
Under Canadian election law, the PMO must announce the date to fill the vacant seat in Lasalle—émard—verdun between Feb. 12 and July
30. With that deadline just weeks away, members of the Longest Ballot Committee — an activist group protesting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s inaction on electoral reform — are eager to participate.
“We see the voting system is rigged for the winner, and the winners write the rules,” said Rhinoceros Party Leader Sébastien Corhino — a regular participant in the election protests and lead organizer for the upcoming byelection.
The Conservatives won a startling upset in a June 24 byelection in Toronto, with Don Stewart besting Liberal candidate Leslie Church by 633 votes.
The Longest Ballot Committee’s 77 candidates garnered 932 votes — 125 less than the Green party candidate but more than four times as many votes as the PPC.
That upset sparked a flurry of conspiracy theories from Liberal partisans, accusing the Longest Ballot Committee of everything from electoral malfeasance to foreign interference — allegations Corhino dismissed with a laugh.
“The results speak for themselves — (around) 40 per cent voted red, and 40 per cent voted blue. There was only around 500 votes between the two of them,” he said.
“I’m not putting dirty money in the game, I’m a poor artist from Rimouski. Who is rigging the election system? It’s the people who got elected for years and never changed the voting system, they’re the ones playing with the system.”
Lasalle–émard–verdun has been held by former justice minister David Lametti, who announced his departure from politics earlier this year, since 2015.
Lametti replaced former justice minister Jody Wilson-raybould after she was booted from caucus by Trudeau at the height of the Snc-lavalin scandal.
The Longest Ballot Committee is run by brothers Kieran and Tomas Szuchewycz.