Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on the government to pass a law to end the campaign held by the "Longest Ballot Committee" ahead of the byelection in August, but is creating a long list of candidates legal and democratic?Currently, more than 100 names are already registered to run against Poilievre in Alberta's Battle River–Crowfoot riding. The committee also targeted his Carleton riding in the federal election in April.“Right now, there’s nothing prohibiting anybody from running, as long as they are 18 years of age and a Canadian citizen, anybody who satisfies that criteria has the right to run. But that being said, it is concerning to me that this keeps happening,” a lawyer at Guardian Law Group and former Alberta justice minister, Jonathan Denis, told the Western Standard Wednesday.“I understand that the official agent for many of these candidates is the same. To be an official agent for more than one candidate in the same election, to me, is a conflict of interest, and I think that should be prohibited.”Poilievre said in a letter to Liberal House Leader Steve MacKinnon Tuesday that targeting his riding by the “Longest Ballot committee” does not respect democracy, noting that it’s an attempt to confuse voters and undermine confidence in elections by manipulating the rules..Poilievre asks government to pass law banning long ballots ahead of byelection .He said in the letter the registered names are neither campaigning nor serving as real candidates.Mount Royal University political science professor Lori Williams said in an interview though creating a long list of candidates is considered legal, it’s meant to distract voters. She explains how it affects the democratic process:“It might actually deter democratic participation, simply because of the complicated complications involved in the actual casting of a ballot. So, anyone who saw the photographs or videos of that ballot in Carleton in Ottawa, where there were nearly 100 candidates in the general election, it was just this huge piece of paper, and trying to find your candidate on that piece of paper could be a little bit daunting,” Williams said.“I think it's a recipe for democratic distance rather than connection.”While the Constitution guarantees Canadians the right to run, the Conservatives will have to find a way to campaign against the tactics that are targeting Poilievre's ridings, said Ian Brodie, a political scientist at the University of Calgary and the chief of staff to former prime minister Stephen Harper..What happens if Alberta stops making the equalization payments?."Sure, you can play around at the margins by forcing every candidate to have, say, a separate financial agent, but that’s not going to stop a determined group from running dozens of candidates in an election like this. If you have 100 people, you get 50 candidates and 50 agents instead of 100 candidates," said Brodie.The opposition leader asked the government in the letter to take action to protect the integrity of elections upon the return of Parliament in September.The party is calling on the government to: "Raise the bar for candidate nominations by requiring 0.5% of the population in any given riding to sign, not just 100 people, require that each signature in support of a candidate be exclusive, with no signatory permitted to endorse more than one candidate in the same election, and restrict official agents to representing only a single election candidate at any given time."The by-election is scheduled to take place on August 18.In the last federal election in April, Alberta’s Battle River-Crowfoot riding was won by Conservative Battle River-Crowfoot MP Damien Kurek. Kurek won the riding by 46,020 votes. He later resigned, opening the door for Poilievre to reclaim his seat in the House of Commons..EXCLUSIVE: UCP members propose party vote on Alberta independence.Elections Canada conducts public opinion research after each election and byelection to address issues and identify improvements that need to be made to the electoral process and inform the CEO's recommendations to Parliament.“That does happen after every election, there are recommendations presented to the minister, and I do think that this is something the minister should look at, but I also think that the minister should consult with members of all political parties, because elections are supposed to be entirely non-partisan,” Denis added.A report on the 45th general election is estimated to be released by the end of 2025 and early 2026, six months after the data is collected.
