What happens to fringe parties if the election is a 2-horse race?
199 candidates are running for 10 minor parties — some that advocate for single issues
Cannabis has been legal in Canada since 2018 and yet the Marijuana Party — which was formed to champion legalization — is still running two candidates in this election.
"The Marijuana Party has been effectively dead. I've kept it barely alive by doing the minimum necessary to keep it registered," Blair Longley, the party's leader, told CBC News.
The party has shifted focus since 2018, raising concerns about how the government regulates pot.
"It's just so rife with absurdities and psychotic BS … it's so screwed up," Longley said of the government's regulatory system. He said that his party has been able to stay registered thanks to people who share those concerns and are willing to take out party memberships.
"[But] if it was only that issue, then I would have been out of this game a long time ago," he said.
Longley said his main concern right now is electoral financing rules he believes are overly restrictive for smaller parties. He's filed legal challenges against the government over those laws with limited success and says he is currently trying to take the government to court again.
"It not just disadvantages smaller parties in general, but [it's] particularly worse on the Marijuana Party," Longley said.
Room for smaller parties in this campaign?
The Marijuana Party is one of 10 small parties that are only running only a handful of candidates this election. Combined, there are 199 candidates for these small slates.
With the election shaping up as a two-horse race between the Liberals and Conservatives, Richard Johnston, a professor emeritus with the University of British Columbia's political science department, says the smaller parties have become more sidelined than usual.
"It leaves them even more kicked to the side of the road than in a more ordinary election," he said.
But Chris MacKenzie — a political sociologist at the University of British Columbia and author of Pro-Family Politics and Fringe Parties in Canada — says small parties rarely focus on electoral success. Rather, they get involved to help draw attention to issues they don't feel are fully addressed by their larger counterparts.
"What their registration as a political party gives them is a platform. It gives them a voice in [the] mainstream electoral political domain where they can go to all-candidates' meetings and they can emphasize the issue that is of particular concern to them," he said.
That being said, MacKenzie agrees that there is probably less appetite for the electorate to cast a "boutique vote" in this election given the heightened sense of urgency around the main ballot questions, specifically U.S. relations and the cost of living.
It's a rarity to see smaller parties have electoral success and they typically act as a protest vote for Canadians disaffected by the major parties. In 2021, small parties accounted 0.75 per cent of the total votes cast. MacKenzie anticipates they'll account for even less this time around.
"There's a certain acute urgency, I think, at play in this election. And that doesn't play well for little minor parties," he said.
But Johnston said that sense of urgency might also play into the smaller parties' hands.
"I suppose that the hope is that they can take advantage of the heightened attention of voters to the political scene to get their message out, at least to some people," he said.
MacKenzie said smaller parties typically represent singular issues. That's evident by their names, such as the Animal Protection Party or the Christian Heritage Party.
Other smaller parties appear to try to occupy areas of the political spectrum that might not necessarily be represented by the major parties.
On the right, MacKenzie said the United Party of Canada is taking a more hardline stance than the People's Party of Canada on some issues. The Centrist Party and the Future Party have tried to place themselves between the Conservatives and Liberals. The Communist Party and the Marxist-Leninist Party find themselves on the far left.
But even these parties can trend toward singular issues, MacKenzie said, pointing to the Future Party as an example.
The Future Party officially launched last summer, billing itself as a centrist option for voters who have become disillusioned with the Liberals and Conservatives.
But MacKenzie said it has largely focused on defence spending this campaign, pushing for Canada to boost its military budget to five per cent of GDP by 2030.
MacKenzie also pointed to the United Party — which was formed by a former Conservative member who attempted to run for the leadership in 2022 — seeming mostly focused on restricting abortion rights and expanding gun rights.
The future of the fringe
Johnston argued that the heyday of fringe parties might be coming to an end.
"It seems that they flourished more in the late 1980s and early 1990s. We actually talked about the [satirical] Rhinoceros [Party]. We talked about Christian Heritage — not a lot, but enough" he said. "[Now] there's been less room in the conversation for these fringe parties."
But MacKenzie said even if they don't have electoral success, fringe parties serve a purpose as a "sentinel for democracy."
"What they're saying is, 'Listen, you can sit down with your friends at a kitchen table and have issues that are of significance to you, and we can register a political party and we can go and try to get elected and get our message out.' That's how the democratic process is supposed to unfold," he said.
"They represent … this notion [that] you can actually engage politically in Canada and that it's important and it's probably more important now than it's ever been."
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