By TIM NAUMETZ |
Published: Wednesday, 10/14/2015 9:34 pm EDT

PARLIAMENT HILL – A record number of unions, coalitions, democracy groups and individual electors have registered to advertise as third parties for or against political parties or candidates in the Oct. 19 general election, a sign one leading expert says means electors are aware “the stakes are high” as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives battle to hang on to power.

A total of 96 labour groups and unions, health and social advocates, nursing associations and electoral change lobbies who for the most part oppose Mr. Harper, along with a sprinkling of Conservative supporters, are registered as third parties with Elections Canada, nearly double the 55 third parties that registered for the 2011 federal election, when Mr. Harper won a majority government.

Elections Canada status as a registered third party gives each of the groups, associations or individuals the legal ability to spend up to $439,410 nationally, or $8,788 per electoral district, supporting or opposing candidates or parties or their policies and platforms.

“People are seeing that the stakes are high,” former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley said in an interview with The Hill Times as he commented on the record high in interest among groups, who for the most part are opponents or critics of the Conservative government, recent registrants as representatives of milk and dairy product farmers, supporters of strategic voting who want to ensure one of the opposition parties form government or advocates of electoral reform.

The 2006 election, when Mr. Harper first won power as prime minister, recorded the third highest number of registered third parties, a total of 78, on Elections Canada records going back to the June, 2004, election.

“I’m glad that we still have a third-party regime, so that people can actually do so in a meaningful way and we, the electors, can actually know who they are and whom they favour,” Mr. Kingsley said, referring indirectly to an unsuccessful court challenge Mr. Harper launched in 2000, when he was president of the right-wing National Citizens Coalition, against limits on third-party spending in election campaigns. Mr. Harper ultimately lost his Alberta court challenge in 2004 on a federal government appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

“I think it’s probably (also) due to the fact that it’s, well, initially a three-way race and a lot of people saw their advantage in joining as third parties,” said Mr. Kingsley, chief electoral officer from 1990 to December 2006.

Mr. Kingsley said the high rate of third-party registrations combined with a record surge in the number of advance voters for this election could be an indication of high turnout on Oct. 19 election day.

Elections Canada on Wednesday reported preliminary figures that show an estimated 3,633,422 electors cast ballots in four days of advance voting from Friday, Oct. 9, to Monday, Oct. 12, a 73 per cent increase from the 2,100,855 electors who cast ballots during advance voting in the 2011 election, despite reports of long delays due to the limited number of ballot boxes and personnel at many polling stations.

“I hope that it’s indicative, as we marry that [third party registration] with the much higher turnout at the advance polls, I hope that we see a real increase in the participation rate, which is hovering around 60 [per cent] and I especially hope that young people, aboriginal Canadians, will go to the election in droves; this election is about them as much as it is about anybody else really,” Mr. Kingsley said, acknowledging that the groups he mentioned were directly affected by stringent new controls the Conservatives put into place for registration at the polls and the kind of ID required to cast ballots.

“That [Conservative election law changes] is a direct impact on them, but as Canadians the impact is, whichever government comes in, the policies concerning them will be very different and it would behoove them to find out what that would be, and it behooves them to go and vote in accordance with what they think is in their best long term interest as Canadians,” Mr. Kingsley said.

Unions and umbrella labour groups accounted for the largest single component of the number of registered third parties for the October election, a total of 26, while another nine are advocates for electoral reform or strategic voting to try to ensure the Conservatives don’t win enough Commons seats to form a minority government.

Conservative supporters who have registered as third parties for the Oct. 19 election include Mr. Harper’s former conservative lobby group, the National Citizens Coalition, and the Canadian Shooting Sports Federation, a vocal opponent of the federal long gun registry that Mr. Harper and his government dismantled.

Opponents include Chicken Farmers of Canada, Dairy Farmers of Canada and UNIFOR, the auto workers’ union that, along with the farm groups, opposes the Harper government’s recent decision to take part in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

tnaumetz@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times