Fourteen Candidates in St. Boniface -– St. Vital Take a United Stand for Electoral Reform
In the Manitoba riding of St. Boniface — St. Vital, (Winnipeg) fourteen candidates have united to highlight their demand for electoral reform and remind electors about the Trudeau Liberal betrayal of its 2015 election promise to end the first-past-the-post method of counting votes.
The fourteen include Sébastien CoRhino, leader of the Parti Rhinoceros Party and 13 independents. All told there will be 21 candidates on the ballot, including those standing for the Conservatives, Greens, Liberals, NDP, Peoples’ Party, Veterans Coalition Party and a 14th independent.
The initiative was launched by Kieran Szuchewycz and his brother Tom and was successful in capturing national media attention. In a CBC report, Sébastien says, “We have a big problem in our democracy. We have two political parties that have been the government of Canada for 150 years. It’s very easy for the Conservatives and the Liberals to elect MPs, and it’s very hard for other parties.”
Referring to the 2017 Parliamentary Electoral Reform Committee recommendation for proportional representation, Sebastien stated, The Liberals “just took the report and threw it in the garbage.”
He added that St. Boniface–St. Vital is a good riding for the action because of the historic government betrayal of the Métis after Manitoba entered confederation.
The CBC report also quotes Minister of Northern Affairs Dan Vandal, the riding’s Liberal incumbent candidate who was elected in 2015. Incapable of seriously addressing the Liberal abandonment of its electoral reform promise, he told the CBC, “[The Rhinos] are not a serious party. They’re a fringe party and for some reason or another they think this is amusing.”
According to him, “They’re making a point nobody understands.”
Far from not understanding, all fourteen candidates in St. Boniface – St. Vital have made history by having “the longest federal ballot seen in this country’s 150 year history.”
Read what the organizers of longest ballot Tomas and Kieran Szuchewycz have to say.