Moose Jaw -
As someone who enjoys following politics, one aspect that has always fascinated me is the lesser-known parties.
These political parties are the ones few people know or understand. They are often focused on one issue, often do not run a full slate of candidates and do not attract much attention from the media.
Federally, we've had several lesser-known parties in recent elections, including two different communist parties, a Christian party, an animal rights party, a First Nations party, a marijuana party and a party that, despite reading through its literature extensively, I have no real clue what it stands for - the People's Political Power Party of Canada.
There's also been parties that have walked the less than serious side including the fun-loving Rhino party (which once threatened to repeal the law of gravity and is now known as neorhino.ca) and the Natural Law Party. The now-defunct Natural Law Party was known for promising to fix the country's problems through yogic flying or levitating (I'm not making this up).
In Saskatchewan, the lesser-known parties have been pretty tame and similar to those elsewhere, including a green party, a marijuana party and a separatist party.
However, if you want to find a cavalcade of unusual political parties you just have to look at the current B.C. provincial election campaign that began earlier this week.
Now, that election includes some incarnations of former ruling parties that have been forgotten, including the B.C. Social Credit and the B.C. Conservatives.
However, there are also some that some people might say you would only find on the Left Coast.
Here are some examples:
‰ The B.C. Refederation Party promises to create a B.C. constitution that would severely shake things up including getting rid of the Lieutenant-Governor and make the people the province's ultimate authority; give citizens a veto over provincial government legislation; and renegotiate with Ottawa the province's rights which the party claims have been "unlawfully invaded by federal charter."
‰ The Annexation Party of B.C. wants to take B.C. out of Confederation and make it the 51st state of the U.S.
‰ The Herb Party is expected to take up the bong from the B.C. Marijuana Party, which has decided not to bogart the ballot and will not run any candidates this time.
‰ The Party of Citizens Who Have Decided To Think For Themselves And Be Their Own Politicians (or POCWHDTTFTABTOP for short) is governed by the principle that each candidate can make up his or her own platform as he or she goes along.
‰ The Planting Seeds Party believes everyone has the right to plant the seeds and plants they wish and opposes genetically-modified plants and prohibition on certain psychoactive plants.
‰ The Sex Party wants to change sex education in schools to, among other things, teach tolerance of sexual minorities, repeal any "sex-negative" laws and support a "sex-positive" community. Sex-negative laws include those that limit sexual entertainment in licensed premises, sexually explicit gatherings, sex toys, sex work and public nudity.
‰ The Work Less Party wants people to - surprise, surprise - work less. The WLP proposes a 32-hour work week and has the slogans "Workers of the world relax" and "Alarm clocks kill dreams."
There are also the separatist-based Progressive Nationalist Party of British Columbia and the Western Canada Concept Party of B.C.
As well, several parties do not have websites, so it was hard to look into them but there were some great names, including: British Columbia Democratic Futures Party, Advocational International Democratic Party of British Columbia, British Columbia Patriot Party, Emerged Democracy Party of British Columbia, Platinum Party of Employers Who Think and Act to Increase Awareness, the People's Front (not to be confused with the People's Front of Judea or the Judean People's Front), Your Political Party of B.C.
Leave it to Canada's Pacific province to roll out a boatload of intriguing political parties with unusual names and causes.
Jason Small can be reached at 691-1255.
