scatmonkey

In keeping with yesterday's look at the Rhino party, I've decided to take a look at some of the other options in the upcoming election outside of the four major parties. Well, three if you live anywhere but Qubec.

There is the Green Party which was founded and originally promoted mostly by members of the largest provincial green party, the Green Party of British Columbia. There are now affiliated Green Parties registered in seven of the ten Canadian provinces. The federal and provincial parties remain closely affiliated, while no joint memberships are issued, the affiliates elect representatives to the federal council, and many officials and candidates in the federal party have positions in the provincial affiliates.

The GPC supports the Ten Key Values originally authored by the Green Party of the United States.

The party has nominated candidates in all 308 ridings for the 2004 general election, which at least gives us Canadians another option.

Since the Rhinos are extinct, the Absolutely Absurd Party is attempting to carry on the tradition.

They advocate many policies including:

• Reducing the legal voting age to 14. "When was the last time a 14 yr old started a war?"


• In federal elections, the individual in dead last becomes the elected official, rather than the one with the most votes.


• "Streamline the Department of Defence by replacing the Department with a crack, elite squad of Rock/Paper/Scissors commandos."

While on paper, the Absolutely Absurd Party looks like a worthy successor to my beloved Rhinos, they aren't nearly funny enough to get my vote.

There's Parti Citron (or Lemon Party) which started in Quebec in the 1990s and has, as of this election, gone Federal. They are in favour of Lemons for the people, by the people and to the people. Personally, I'm not much of a fan of lemons, so let's move on.

Following the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and the Canadian Alliance into the new Conservative Party of Canada, the Progressive Canadian Party was formed by former Progressive Conservatives who opposed the merger. Many of these are red Tories , i.e., more centrist Progressive Conservatives. One of the organizers, Joe Hueglin, is a former Progressive Conservative MP from Niagara Falls, Ontario.

In announcing the new party, Hueglin stated that the party had about a dozen potential candidates and a mailing list of 330 names. The party has nominated 16 candidates for the 2004 general election, mostly in Nova Scotia, and in the London, Ontario area, and elsewhere in Ontario.

The new PC Party aims to be the successor to the former Progressive Conservative Party. However, no sitting MPs or Senators have joined, and no prominent figures such as former PM Joe Clark are associated with the new party.

While the party does not have a policy platform yet, it is expected that it will be similar to that of the old Progressive Conservative party. The new party's official logo and initials are similar to that of the old party, apparently in an effort to capitalize on the well known PC brand name, which may confuse some voters into thinking the Progressive Conservative Party still exists.

Nothing like a disgruntled group of bureaucrats now horribly aware that they'll never get a patronage appointment to the Senate to keep the ball spite rolling.

Of the "fringe" parties, none really interest me like Direct Access Democracy Canada. They aims to replace Canadas system of representative democracy with a participatory democracy where all citizens are able to participate in making political decisions. They have a well outlined platform and principals, and generally speaking, I think their entire concept is nifty with a capital "NIFT".

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So what was the point of all that? I don't actually remember. I had a point when I started typing that up, but I pretty much forgot it somewhere in there, I'm just getting the weird little thoughts out on paper. Er. Text. Er. HTML. Whatever.

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And I have a sneaking suspicion no reads any of my long winded stuff anyway, so I'm just filling up space.

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Song of the moment: "Stolen Gift" - Mellonova