Jackson makes pitch to end nuisance ballots

Brandon-Souris Conservative MP Grant Jackson said he believes there will be cross-party support for changes to election rules that will put a stop to overly long ballots.

Jackson presented his petition on new rules for people running in federal elections to the House of Commons last week, while lambasting a representative of the organization responsible for more than 200 people running in a federal byelection in Alberta this summer.

“The actions of your organization particularly hurt and block the ability of seniors and folks with disabilities to be able to cast their ballot,” Jackson told Longest Ballot Committee (LBC) organizer Tomas Szuchewycz in a Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs meeting last Tuesday.

“Those who are born with additional needs and the seniors who built this country should not have barriers put in their way by a political stunt that has no motivation or request from the public to change our electoral system.”

Szuchewycz’s LBC ran 201 candidates in Battle River-Crowfoot during this summer’s byelection that returned Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to Parliament. It also ran 85 candidates in Poilievre’s former Carleton riding in April’s general election, which Poilievre lost.

The aim of the LBC is to update the Elections Act and set up an independent body to govern election rules, the group told the Sun in June.

“It’s great being invited by MPs to tell them to their face that everyone knows that they’re in a conflict of interest when they write their own election rules,” Szuchewycz wrote in an email to the Sun Tuesday.

“MPs should do the right thing and recuse themselves and pass responsibility of the full framework of Election Law to a permanent, independent and non-partisan body.”

One of the main sticking points raised at the parliamentary meetings, Jackson said, was that the LBC collected signatures before having names of candidates on the forms.

Jon Pammett, a research professor in political science at Carleton University, told the parliamentary committee that LBC found a “loophole” in election rules, allowing the group to run a large number of candidates in a single riding.

LBC’s methods “overload the electoral mechanisms,” causing “inconvenience and annoyance,” Pammett said. Those tactics “don’t seem to relate very well to the ultimate goals as expressed by the group.”

The organization acts as a political party, without having the same rules as other parties, Ryan Davies, president of Northern Perspective, an independent media outlet based in Ontario, told the parliamentary committee.

“I believe this is a direct violation of the Elections Canada Act as they are operating as a registered political party despite not being registered,” he told the committee that is made up of 10 members of Parliament.

Committee members — five Liberals, four Conservatives and one Bloc Québécois — asked questions of experts, political analysts and the LBC over two meetings last week.

Jackson’s petition garnered 1,252 signatures before it was read on Wednesday.

It calls for every person on the ballot to have a separate official agent and everyone who runs in a riding to pay $500, which would be refunded if they receive more than 0.1 per cent of the riding’s vote.

Many of the independent candidates in the last elections Poilievre ran in shared Szuchewycz as an official agent.

Much of the rest of the parliamentary committee meetings focused on the efficacy of having a large number of people compete in a riding, how it could dissuade people from voting and how the short-term fix seen in the Alberta byelection — where voters wrote the name of their preferred candidate — was not a long-term solution.

Following more meetings with experts and election officials, the committee will present a recommendation to the House of Commons, with a bill potentially coming forward as well.

Jackson’s proposal to have one official agent per nominee would be an important change, he said Wednesday.

“The Liberals seem to be positive on that, from my perspective, and certainly the experts in their testimony all agreed that that was a reasonable change to be put in place,” he said.

Another idea that came up during the parliamentary committee meetings was changing the requirement for nomination papers so that people could only sign one set.

“I think the experts in their testimony were very supportive of that being a reasonable restriction to put in place. So, I’m hopeful that we’ll find cross-party support for that as well,” Jackson said.

A $1,000 deposit that used to be in place for nominees was struck down by an Alberta court in 2017, Jackson said, adding the decision potentially should have been appealed.

Szuchewycz said the parliamentary committee’s goal to limit official agents “surprised” his group but “wouldn’t really impact our work at all.”

He said sharing official agents is common, and that all the federal parties do so as well.

“Just another example (of) why MPs should recuse themselves from deciding election rules, and pass responsibility to a permanent, independent and non-partisan body.”

Last week, he told the parliamentary committee that being asked to appear before them was already a win for the organization.

“I think me being invited here is pretty good evidence that we’ve been very successful.”

» alambert@brandonsun.com