Commentary
Who is the first political candidate in Canadian history to record zero votes in a contested federal riding? The answer to this trivia question is FĂ©lix-Antoine Hamel, and you donât have to go back too far in your research to retrieve it.
Hamel ended up with no votes to his name in the recent TorontoâSt. Paulâs byelection. Thatâs
the riding won by Conservative candidate Don Stewart on June 24, which had been held by Liberals for over three decades.
There were 12 candidates in TorontoâSt. Paulâs who either ran under a party banner or with no affiliation. An additional 72 candidates ran as Independents in this hotly contested byelection. Of this number, 48 ended up with less than 10 votes apiece, and six were tied for second-last place with two votes.
Hamel, one of the Independent candidates, sat alone in last place. Why didnât he vote for himself? He couldnât for one simple reason: He doesnât live in the riding.
Who is this political candidate that Canadian Trivial Pursuit enthusiasts will forever remember as having set a record few would want to emulate?
According to a June 26 CBC News
article, heâs a 45-year-old musician living in Montreal. He reportedly put his name forward âafter his friendâwho works with the electoral reform advocacy group called the Longest Ballot Committeeâapproached him.â
The Longest Ballot Committee was established in 2021 to protest Canadaâs first-past-the-post electoral system. Hence, this group is opposed to a candidate winning a riding by a plurality of votesâwhich is the method used for most elections in Canadaâand would prefer that proportional representation was used instead. They
used to be associated with the not-so-serious Rhinoceros Party of Canada, and have maintained a
small presence on social media platforms like X.
Itâs fair to say the Longest Ballot Committee has had some
success in finding protest candidates like Hamel to flood ballots and delay results. Their presence has been felt in five federal byelections: Saint BonifaceâSaint Vital in 2021, MississaugaâLakeshore in 2022, Winnipeg South Centre and Kitchener Centre in 2023, and now TorontoâSt. Paulâs.
Hamel admitted to putting almost no effort into his campaign, and juxtaposed his presence on the ballot to that of former NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau. The 27-year-old pub manager won a seat in the Quebec riding of BerthierâMaskinongĂ© in 2011. She was part of the late NDP leader Jack Laytonâs âorange waveâ in the province. This was in spite of the fact Brosseau
was a paper candidate who had no political knowledge and never stepped foot in the riding. In fact, she spent three days of the federal campaign celebrating her birthday in Las Vegas.
Brosseau, to her credit, took advantage of this opportunity that unexpectedly fell into her lap. She
studied and improved her French, which she hadnât spoken since she was young. Brosseau worked hard in Ottawa on behalf of her constituents. She would ultimately
become a high-ranking member of the NDP caucus, rising all the way
to House leader, before losing her seat in 2019.
âAnything could happen,â Hamel told CBC News. âItâs our democracy, thatâs how it works and it can be sometimes totally absurd.â Thatâs true, but it would be equally absurd to believe his political journey would even slightly resemble Brosseauâs journey. Other than the fact theyâll both be connected to pubs, albeit with his link solely tied to political trivia.
Hamel, who has received international coverage in UKâs
Guardian newspaper and the
New York Post, is clearly enjoying his 15 minutes of fame. Nevertheless, the Montreal-based musician seems relatively level-headed when it comes to his ignominious place in Canadian political history.
âIâm one of the last people that would be expected to make Canadian history in any way,â he told CBC News. âAs long as I have the right and the privilege to get zero votes in an election, then we are truly in a democracy.â
Thatâs the whole point of this exercise. There have been political candidates in Canada who
received zero votes in elections, but they ran unopposed. The last time it happened in a federal byelection was 1957, when Progressive Conservative candidate George Doucett was acclaimed in the Ontario riding of Lanark. (The farmer and insurance broker was
re-elected in 1958, 1962, and 1963.) While no one had ever done what Hamel did in TorontoâSt. Paulâs, the fact that he ended up with no votes proves our democracy, as imperfect as it is, does work.
Or, as Hamel humorously put it, âWhen I saw the result, I was like, âWell, I am the true unity candidate. Everyone agrees not to vote for me.ââ
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
