by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)
If you want to encourage people to change something, you must find what appeals to them and avoid turning them off. If some of those people already find that “something” annoying or unimportant, you need to display some empathy because people tend to resist rather than embrace change. And if the change you wish to effect is the least bit difficult to explain and would lead to disrupting how that “something” has seemingly always worked (even though that isn’t so), you must come ready with a coherent argument that assuages the fears of those people and doesn’t nourish their cynicism.
You would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t like apple pie, right? Well, you would be equally hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t believe in fairness. But in the current divisive political climate, your biggest challenge when arguing in favour of changing our electoral system might be to reach a consensus on what fairness is, and that it needs to apply to all lawful citizens, not just to the people who look like we do, who speak like we do, or who think like we do. You must be clear that you wish to see the electoral system changed because we would all have something to gain, not just you: true fairness and a more representative democracy.
Candidates are not required to reside in the riding in which they intend to run, but until the Szuchewycz v. Canada (Attorney General) decision in 2017, each candidate running in a federal election was required a $1,000 deposit — a requirement allegedly implemented to weed out frivolous candidates.
Kieran Szuchewycz, a Marxist-Leninist sympatizer, had seen his 2015 nomination application refused when he had attempted to run as an independent candidate against Stephen Harper in Calgary-Heritage, for while he would have been “able to meet the deposit requirement [...] he did not provide it in anticipation of being refused on other grounds, based on his conversation with the Returning Officer.” Instead he brought the matter to Court, arguing that the deposit and other requirements infringed on his rights conferred by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which provides that “Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.”
In her decision,
the Honourable Madam Justice Avril B. Inglis of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, while declaring the deposit requirement “of no force and effect,” maintained the requirement of submitting the signature of at least 100 electors qualified to vote in the riding where the candidate intends to run. Subsequently, Szuchewycz’s nomination application under the revised rules was accepted in 2019 when he ran as an independent against Andrew Scheer in Regina—Qu’Appelle, where he finished seventh in a field of eight candidates. As of 2025, Szuchewycz hasn’t run in another federal election, but he has most certainly not disappeared.
He and his brother Tomas teamed up with the leader of the Rhinoceros Party, Sébastien CôRhino Corriveau, and in the 2021 federal election, they helped make something strange happen in the Manitoba riding of Saint Boniface—Saint Vital. At their urging, an astonishing 14 independent candidates (including Tomas) ran in addition to CôRhino, in protest of the Trudeau government reneging on its promise that the 2015 federal election would be the last to be held under the first-past-the-post system, and to demonstrate that the electoral system is broken. It was a bit rich to observe that one of the lead promoters of electoral reform was a joke party whose main promise is that, if it is ever elected, it would not hold any of its promises. But at the time, it was easy enough to dismiss the situation as a one-time phenomenon.
Except it wasn’t a one-time thing. It was only the first time!
The Longest Ballot initiative had only begun.
The 2024 by-election in Toronto—St. Paul’s is perhaps remembered more for the political upset it caused. A Liberal Party bastion since 1993, the riding fell into the hands of the Conservatives. But it is also the electoral event that had broken the record at the time in terms of number of candidates running in a single federal riding: 84 in total, with 73 as part of the Longest Ballot Initiative, mostly as independents. Less than three months later, the by-election in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun broke that record with 77 LBI candidates. Both cases were a shock for the Liberals, but they got those seats back in the 2025 general election. The attempt to destabilize Pierre Poilievre in Carleton in this election was as ineffective as the one against Dan Vandal in Saint-Boniface—Saint Vital in the 2021 general election.
The ballot had to be redesigned (as shown to the left) in two columns of candidates listed side-by-side, with the circles where voters could mark their preference listed on the right and left margins of the ballot. Despite this adjustment, the ballot was 30 centimetres wide by 90 centimetres long. The final results took much longer than usual to be announced: the Liberal candidate was leading at the end of the evening, but the Conservative candidate was declared the winner overnight with a plurality of 590 votes.
For what it’s worth, it should be noted that:
— Combined, the 73 longest ballot initiative candidates in St. Paul’s obtained 983 votes. That represents an average of 13 votes per candidate, although one of them received no vote. That number of 983 is 393 more votes than the plurality between the first- and second-place finisher.
— In LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, the 77 LBI candidates received 1,006 votes, representing an average of 13 votes per candidate, but with two of them receiving no vote. That number of 1,006 is 758 more votes than the Bloc Québécois candidate’s 248-vote plurality over the second-place Liberal candidate.
However, in view of more than a year’s worth of polls showing the Liberals having become deeply unpopular, and keeping in mind that much has happened — including a pandemic! — in the six years since the Liberals walked away from changing the electoral system, it could be said that the LBI candidates may have given the Liberals the coup de grâce that robbed them of their strongholds, but it would be a stretch to say it was because of the issue of electoral reform.
In this CBC article published ten days before the St. Paul’s by-election, Glen MacDonald, one of the independent candidates involved in the Longest Ballot Committee, said, “We need to highlight the fact that our voting system is a joke and it’s producing results that are completely inaccurate and distorted.” Another candidate, Julie St-Amand, said, “By just getting more people aware and talking about it, we’re hoping it just spreads like wildfire.”
Oh dear! Right sentiment, but totally wrong approach. The evidence of the first-past-the-post electoral system being “a joke,” as MacDonald put it, has existed since that system has been used in Canada and elsewhere, and can be seen throughout PoliCan. FPTP is a majoritarian system, and the inaccuracies and distortions are by design: it is the wont of majoritarian systems to lead, precisely, to majorities — even if they are artificial and fundamentally disregard voters’ intentions. And St-Amand’s thought that the committee’s action will get “more people aware and talking about it” is, at best, naive and, at worse, dangerous for the cause of proportional representation.
“Dangerous” might strike you as a strong word, but I choose it deliberately. Whether we change to the mixed-member proportional (MMP) or the single transferable vote (STV) electoral system, the ballots will inevitably be longer. In an MMP system, voters would likely have two ballots, and whether the system is designed with an open or a closed list for the regional representatives, that ballot is likely to be considerably longer than what we have become accustomed under FPTP, and is unlikely to include independents if the system uses a closed list. And in an STV system, there may or may not be two ballots, but voters would be asked to rank as many candidates as they wish by their preference, which is obviously a bit more difficult for them than just marking a single “X” on a single ballot.
While I was watching the CBC programming online of the incoming results for the St. Paul’s by-election, I heard one commentator (whose name I unfortunately forget) say that he supported getting rid of the FPTP system... until that evening. As the returns stalled and new results stopped coming in, it was speculated that Elections Canada was having trouble tabulating the much longer-than-usual ballots. That brought that commentator to declare that he had changed his mind that night if that was the effect of having longer ballots. So Julie St-Amand was right that it would get people “talking about it,” but it achieved the opposite effect!
Hence my choice of the word “dangerous.” I’m going to be blunt: This is one instance when you won’t achieve change by pissing people off.
It must be said, however, that CôRhino Corriveau and the Szuchewycz brothers attempt to go beyond simply declaring the electoral system broken. In an article in The Sarnia Observer published just before the writ was dropped in July 2024 for the by-election in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, CôRhino said, “We see the voting system is rigged for the winner, and the winners write the rules.” That echoes (to the point of plagiarism, which isn’t surprising) the concluding statement in the Szuchewycz brothers’ blurb on the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada website: “The rules and model of our democracy are determined by the winners of the last election; this is neither fair nor democratic.” The brothers set that strident tone from the opening of their declaration explaining their reasoning for organizing the longest ballot initiative:
Canadians have not forgotten that Justin Trudeau broke his promise to make the 2015 election the last first-past-the-post (FPTP) election. Canadians remain unsatisfied with the archaic and out-of-touch political system which Justin Trudeau and Erin O’Toole call a democracy. An opportunity every few years to vote for the lesser evil is a far cry from what Canadians deserve. Our democracy is one that is designed to keep the voices of ordinary people out and concentrate power in the hands of a few. People feel disillusioned with voting for those that don’t represent them. Instead of accepting apathy and alienation, we decided to do the opposite; and engaged directly with our democracy to make ourselves heard.
But a McMaster University political scientist, Peter Graefe, quoted in that Observer article, doubts this engagement will lead to electoral reform.
“In the short term, it makes its point that there are people upset with the Liberal government’s decision to walk away from electoral reform,” he said.
“Is it an inconvenience for people going to vote who are flummoxed by a massive ballot? Yes. But is it really that annoying to the political parties contesting those byelections? No.”
About how the “rules and model of our democracy are determined by the winners of the last election,” again I’m going to be blunt: This is polemical nonsense bordering on conspiracy theory.
Here are two fact checks.
ONE: The rules are not determined by the winner but by Elections Canada, which is “an independent, non-partisan agency that reports directly to Parliament,” but onto which Parliament can only intervene if EC strays from its stated mandate. So when it comes to elections, EC is the watchdog for all candidates, including the winners.
TWO: One must be careful not to mix-and-match words like “democracy,” “voting,” and “political system.” A statement like, “An opportunity every few years to vote for the lesser evil is a far cry from what Canadians deserve” may seem reasonable on the surface but, on closer inspection, it reveals an underlying belief that every political position — as radical or as goofy or as unorthodox as it is — deserves to be represented in Parliament. Just take a look at Israel or Italy, where a pure proportional representation electoral system allows this to happen, and then think again! Fair representation is what Canadians want, not chaos verging on anarchy.
That being said, I believe Madam Justice Inglis ruled correctly in Kieran Szuchewycz’s case that the $1,000 deposit requirement did breach his rights under the Charter, although I am unsure she could have foreseen the Pandora’s box that abolishing this requirement would open. Perhaps the word “deposit” should have been emphasized, as that sum was refunded if a candidate met the reporting requirements of the Canada Elections Act, numerous as they are. From that perspective, and considering that serious candidates need to spend much more to run a legitimate campaign, the deposit did have the desired effect of weeding out frivolous candidacies. It perhaps would have been more prudent for the judge to consider reducing the amount of the deposit, but who am I to question a judge!
But Madam Justice was definitely right in maintaining what the Szuchewycz brothers call “the rules and model of our democracy,” especially as we are now increasingly concerned about foreign interference in our elections. A credible electoral system, whether it is proportional or not, needs checks and balances — verifiable documentation to confirm the legitimacy of the candidacies and, ultimately, the results. To suggest that these requirements serve only “to keep the voices of ordinary people out and concentrate power in the hands of a few” is mere hyperbolic rhetoric. If one is willing to serve the public, one must also be willing put some effort into it.
The reasons why power is concentrated to so few people is deeply systemic, not an orchestrated plot by the elite to maintain that power. The biggest hurdle is an economic one. It’s very expensive and time-consuming to run a campaign in the 21st century. You have to get yourself known. You have to get your message out. You have to motivate people to vote for you. Serious candidates must not only be prepared but able to put their life on hold, which is a fact this article and podcast of a 2019 episode of CBC Radio’s Cost of Living explains very well. Running for a seat in Parliament simply cannot be compared to applying for a job. But even if you were to try to make that comparison, remember that there are only 343 openings for about 40,000,000 Canadians.
I am willing to bet that only a small handful of the 73 long-ballot protesters in St. Paul’s did as little as lift a finger after meeting the minimal requirements for their nomination application — assuming they even did that, as I suspect that most of that work was done by their official agent. I don’t know about you, but I’m not prepared to vote for someone like that, and this is coming from someone who profoundly wishes that we could rid ourselves of the first-past-the-post system. FPTP is already known to be ill-suited for a modern democracy like ours, so all this initiative is accomplishing is increasing public cynicism towards politics in general. But even worse, it is giving ammunition to opponents of proportional representation who will gladly point to these long ballots and proclaim (wrongly) that this would be our future if we adopted a PR system.
In other words, it’s the right cause, but it’s the wrong tactic to effect the change we need.
And a final point... Sometimes the messenger carrying the message is just as important as the message itself. It is understood that the Rhinoceros Party, by definition, has no credibility. By the same token, in Canada in the 21st century, neither does the Marxist-Leninist Party. Rightly or wrongly, most Canadians have a visceral negative reaction simply upon hearing the name of that party. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the Szuchewycz brothers and others who subscribe to that party’s ideology. However, to point to our current electoral system as the main factor for their party’s inability to gain traction reveals more their lack of understanding of today’s Canadian electorate, thereby undermining the credibility of not only the message but also the messengers. In fact, their political positions are so far off the mainstream that these messengers cannot legitimately claim to represent “the voices of ordinary people.”
I think I have a very good reason to call these people misguided. Although I think that some have agreed to let their name stand because they’re legitimately upset about the Trudeau government’s reversal on electoral reform, I believe more strongly that most — especially those with a bit of history with the Rhinoceros Party — are simply doing it because they think these long ballots are the funniest thing. Except that they’re not funny. Just like this candidate isn’t remotely funny.
While it may not cost them anything to have their fun, there’s a real problem with all of this. They are hurting the cause for which they purport to be raising awareness. And for those of us who care about and understand the issue, their fun is anything but funny.
