Fringe candidates raise a little hell come election time

If the number of advance voters lining up is any indication (and I think it is) Canadians are ready to vote in record numbers this time around.

Either that or everyone is going on vacation on Oct. 19.

Whatever the reason, many Canadians used this Thanksgiving weekend to do their democratic duty before heading to relatives' homes to further solidify our place in the food chain ahead of turkeys.

And I was one of them.

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I voted in my west-end Toronto riding at a small recreation centre, where smiling, helpful volunteers carefully checked my ID, handed me a pencil they almost certainly stole from a golf course and then presented me with my ballot which had, wait for it … seven choices of candidates. Seven? And there wasn't even one for the Bloc Québécois.

Where did all these "other" candidates come from?

Well, in my neighbourhood, the most interesting option was the Radical Marijuana Party. Not surprisingly, I hadn't known this was an option. It seems to me if you have a "radical marijuana view" on things you would probably just vote Liberal or most likely not vote at all.

But this party is a real thing (at least in my neighbourhood) where my neighbor and friend Herb (no pun intended) explained that the Radical Marijuana candidate, Terry Parker, campaigned mostly by riding his bike around the streets yelling, "Get off your ass and vote for grass!"

As party positioning lines go, this is just about perfect. Even if people haven't called marijuana "grass" for about four decades now, the nostalgia appeals to the party's base. Now that I know that Parker was a candidate, I am kicking myself for not attending the all candidates' debate, which might have gone something like this:

Moderator: And where does the Radical Marijuana Party stand on the niqab issue?

Terry Parker: I'm against anything that blocks your mouth from getting to the bong.

Moderator: OK. Moving on …

There was also a Libertarian candidate in my riding, a party I have never quite understood other than to imagine it mocking the Liberal Party for not being Liberal enough (i.e., if the Liberals say "Vote for Justin," the Libertarians would just say "Vote … or don't. It's totally up to you").

Intriguing possibilities

There was also, of course, a Green Party candidate (who should get some traction in a riding with a 160-hectare urban park in the centre of it), an independent candidate, who must be known to at least 100 people to be on the ballot (and I hope won't be crestfallen if she doesn't receive 100 votes), and there was even a Conservative candidate whose visibility during this campaign rivalled that of his elusive fellow Conservative Joe Oliver.

Honestly, finding a Conservative sign on the lawns in my area is like trying to find an employee who works at The Bay when you want to pay for something.

Oh yes, there was also a Marxist-Leninist candidate in my riding. The clear choice for those who don't like having choices.

Although only one of the candidates in my riding appealed to me personally, I found it intriguing there were so many other options to choose from — intriguingly good, in that we don't have just two choices (or worse, just one) and intriguingly bad, because there are so many opportunities to spoil a ballot by choosing a party with no mathematical chance of winning the seat.

But hey, as anyone who has ever hosted a barbecue that you're not sure people will come to knows, every party has to start somewhere, right? It might as well start with you. Or, as the great Canadian philosophers Trooper once wrote:

If you don't like what you got,
Why don't you change it?
If your world is all screwed up,
Rearrange it.

So here's to all those "other" candidates out there, fighting for what they believe in, making their way onto an election ballot and "raising a little hell" in the process. At the very least, you're making voters say, "Who the hell is that?"

Something Canadian comedians and other entertainers have been doing their entire careers.