Longest Ballot Committee strikes back at Poilievre's criticism

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OTTAWA — Closing loopholes barring election protests doesn’t address Canada’s need for election reform, the Longest Ballot Committee says.

Responding to comments made last week by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on the committee’s efforts to create a record-breaking 200-name ballot in the byelection meant to return him to the House of Commons, organizers say erecting candidacy roadblocks doesn’t address the core issue behind their protest.

“Ever since we started the LBC years ago we have been calling for politicians like Mr. Poilievre to step aside and recuse themselves from deciding election rules,” the committee said in a statement.

“The reason is simple: when it comes to election law, politicians just have too much skin in the game to be calling the shots. There is a clear and inappropriate conflict of interest. After all, what Prime Minister would reform the system which brought them to power?”

The Longest Ballot Committee was created in the wake of a broken election promise by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who loudly proclaimed that his 2015 victory would be the last election in Canada governed by first-past-the-post election (FPTP) rules.

Speaking in the east-central Alberta town of Stettler on Friday, Poilievre dismissed the committee’s protest and called for changes requiring candidates to have at least 1,000 signatures before being added to the ballot.

“We need to get rid of this long ballot,” said Poilievre, according reports published in local newspaper The Stettler Independent.

“There’s no justification for it.”

The committee, and others, say FPTP is unfair and outdated, and want Canada to enact balloting systems like proportional representation, which better reflect the popular vote over winning a straight majority.

The committee is responsible for comically large ballots in previous elections, flouting loose residency requirements and encouraging Canadians across the country to run as independents.

Poilievre’s proposal, the committee counters, is the direct opposite of election reform.

“In most of Canada it would turn every election into a two-party race, and in safe ridings, like Battle-River Crowfoot, we would likely see no election at all, races would simply be won by acclamation,” the committee said. 

Battle-River Crowfoot MP Damien Kurek stepped aside to allow Poilievre to run after the Conservative leader failed to win his seat on election night, losing his long-held riding of Carleton to the Liberal candidate. 

The suburban riding of Carleton was targeted by the committee, resulting in a metre-long, 91-name ballot.

The committee had also planned to target Nepean — the riding where the Liberals ran Prime Minister Mark Carney as a parachute candidate — but told the Toronto Sun that tight nomination timelines prevented them from doing so.

They had originally planned to target the campaign of former Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland before Carney was named Liberal leader.

The committee plan a 200-name ballot for the Battle River-Crowfoot riding — and with two weeks to go before nominations close, 45 names have so far been registered with Elections Canada.

Carleton’s 91-name ballot matched the current record set during the during the 2024 federal byelection in LaSalle–Emard–Verdun.

That topped the previous record of 84 candidates for the 2024 Toronto-St. Paul’s byelection.

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
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