Ten candidates vying to represent Battle River-Crowfoot in the House of Commons are debating tonight in the riding’s largest municipality.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is among the candidates at the event — being livestreamed here — hosted by the Camrose & District Chamber of Commerce ahead of the Aug. 18 byelection.
Poilievre is looking to win in the sprawling eastern Alberta riding after he lost his long-held Ottawa seat of Carleton in the April general election.
The writ was dropped last month after Conservative Damien Kurek, who handily won the seat in the April vote, stepped down so Poilievre could run.
About 210 candidates were registered to run as of Monday on Elections Canada’s website, including Liberal candidate Darcy Spady, the NDP’s Katherine Swampy, Independent Bonnie Critchley and dozens of others sponsored by the Longest Ballot Committee protest group.
The longest ballot in federal election history with a twist
The Longest Ballot Committee has been organizing dozens of candidates to run in byelections in recent years, resulting in metre-long ballots that have caused delays in vote counting and confounded some voters.
The group wants to put a citizens’ assembly in charge of electoral reform and says political parties are too reluctant to make the government more representative of the electorate.
The previous record of 91 candidates occurred twice in the past year: during a byelection in LaSalle-Emard-Verdun last September and Carleton during the general election this past spring.
Elections Canada says adapted ballots requiring electors to write out the name of their preferred pick will be available at polls given the unusually long list of candidates.
