Cannabis has been legal in Canada since 2018 and, nevertheless, in the marijuana party, which was formed to defend legalization, it is still executing two candidates in this election.
“The marijuana party has been effectively dead. I have kept it just alive making the minimum necessary to keep it registered,” said Blair Longley, party leader, CBC News.
The party has changed the approach since 2018, which increases concerns about how the government regulates marijuana.
“He is so full of absurds and psychotic Bs … he is so fucked,” Longley said about the government regulatory system. He said that his party has been able to remain registered thanks to the people who share those concerns and are willing to get membership members of the party.
“[But] If it were just that problem, then I would have been out of this game a long time ago, “he said.
Longley said his main concern at this time are the rules of electoral financing that he believes are too restrictive for smaller parties. He has presented legal challenges against the Government about those laws with limited success and says that he is currently trying to take the government to court again.
“Not only disadvantages the smallest parts in general, but also [it’s] Particularly worse at the marijuana party, “Longley said.
Do you speak for smaller parties in this campaign?
The marijuana party is one of the 10 small games that are only executing a handful of candidates in this election. Combined, there are 199 candidates for these little boards.
With the choice that is emerging as a two -horse race between liberals and conservatives, Richard Johnston, emeritus professor of the Department of Political Sciences of the University of British Columbia, says that the smallest parties have become more marginalized than usual.
“It leaves them even more kicked next to the road than in a more ordinary choice,” he said.
But Chris Mackenzie, political sociologist at the University of Columbia Britanic and author of Politics to the family and marginal parties in Canada – He says that little games rarely focus on electoral success. Rather, they get involved to help attract attention to problems that do not feel that their biggest counterparts address completely.
“What their registration as a political party is a platform. It gives them a voice in [the] The conventional electoral domain where they can go to the meetings of all candidates and can emphasize the problem that worries them especially, “he said.
That said, Mackenzie agrees that there is probably less appetite for the electorate to issue a “boutique vote” in this choice given the greatest sense of urgency around the main questions of the vote, specifically the relations of the United States and the cost of life.
It is a rarity to see the smallest parties have electoral success and generally act as a vote of protest for the unhappy Canadians for the main parties. In 2021, small matches represented 0.75 percent of the total votes cast. Mackenzie anticipates that they will represent even less this time.
“I think there is a certain acute urgency at stake in these elections. And that does not play well for small minor parties,” he said.
As the Federal Electoral campaign is aimed at its last weekend, the Eric Grenier and Philippe J. Fournier aggregate describes what they see in the last surveys numbers and some very disputed currents, where the liberals seem to be losing ground.
But Johnston said the emergency feeling could also play in the hands of the smallest parties.
“I suppose the hope is that they can take advantage of the greatest attention of voters to the political scene to convey their message, at least for some people,” he said.
Mackenzie said that smaller parts usually represent unique problems. That is evident for their names, such as the Animal Protection Party or the Christian Heritage Party.
Other smaller parties seem to try to occupy areas of the political spectrum that could not necessarily be represented by the main parties.
On the right, Mackenzie said the United Party of Canada is adopting a tougher position than the Canada Popular Party on some issues. The centrist and future party have tried to place between conservatives and liberals. The Communist Party and the Marxist-Leninist party are at the far left.
But even these parties can tend to singular issues, Mackenzie said, pointing to the future party as an example.
The future party was officially launched last summer, invoicing as a centrist option for voters who have disappointed liberals and conservatives.
But Mackenzie said he has focused largely on defense spending on this campaign, pressing Canada to boost his military budget for five percent of GDP by 2030.
Mackenzie also pointed to the United Party, which was formed by a former conservative member who tried to run for leadership in 2022, seemed mainly focused on restricting abortion rights and expanding the rights of weapons.
The future of the margin
Johnston argued that the peak of the marginal parties could be coming to an end.
“It seems that they flourished more in the late 1980s and early nineties. We really talked about the [satirical] Rhinoceros [Party]. We talk about Christian heritage, not much, but enough “he said.”[Now] There has been less space in conversation for these marginal parties. “
But Mackenzie said that even if they have no electoral success, marginal parties have a “sentry for democracy.”
“What they say is: ‘Listen, you can sit with your friends on a kitchen table and have problems that are important to you, and we can register a political party and we can go and try to be chosen and transmit our message.’ This is how the democratic process is supposed to develop,” he said.
“They represent … this notion [that] Actually, you can participate politically in Canada and that is important and is probably more important now than ever. “
