91 candidates running in same riding as Poilievre

Voters in the Ottawa riding of Carleton should expect a very long ballot on April 28, with the majority of candidates running as independent.

A day before Elections Canada is set to post the final list, there are 91 people signed up to compete in the riding that current Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has held since 2015.

The reason for the uncommon length of candidates has to do with a group advocating for electoral reform.

“We do long ballots because politicians should not be in charge of election rules; there is an obvious conflict of interest,” Tomas Szuchewycz, one of three leaders of the Longest Ballot Committee, wrote in an email to The Leader Spirit. “After all, what (prime minister) would change a system which brought them to power?”

The goal of the group that formed in 2015 is to bring the conversation of reform more attention by making the ballots extremely long.

Justin Trudeau campaigned in 2015 on a promise that it would be the last federal election under the first-past-the-post system, but then broke that vow in 2017. 

“It would benefit voters if politicians recused themselves and passed decisions about election rules to a permanent, independent, and non-partisan body such as a citizens’ assembly,” Szuchewycz said.

There are a number of steps needed for someone to become an official candidate in a Canadian election, including appointing an official agent — such as Szuchewycz is for the 86 mostly independent candidates — complete a nomination package, which includes a minimum of 100 signatures of electors that live in the riding.

Szuchewycz said Elections Canada has verified each of the candidates he has signed.

Ballot counting could be delayed in Carleton riding

This is not the first election race to be targeted by the organization. In a 2024 Montreal byelection, the group made it the longest ballot in the history of Canadian federal elections with 91 candidates.

Earlier that year, the results of a byelection held in Toronto—St. Paul’s were delayed for hours after 84 candidates signed up to run, including 77 linked to the Longest Ballot Committee. 

Elections Canada printed ballots that were nearly a metre long, with two columns of names. The agency said at the time that compared with usual elections, the enormous ballots took longer to unfold and tally, and more ballot boxes were required to hold them. 

In the end, the final count wasn’t released until after 4 a.m. the following morning.

The goal for the organization is for the government to give up the decisions when it comes to elections.

Szuchewycz said he wants “Politicians (to) admit it’s a conflict of interest for them to make decisions on election law, since they can’t help but think of how any changes might impact their own careers.”

With files from Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press.

The total list of candidates running