Canada’s federal Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, is attempting to regain a seat in parliament through a byelection in the rural Alberta district of Battle River-Crowfoot.
This comes four months after the Conservatives’ defeat in April’s federal election, where Poilievre lost the riding he had held for over 20 years.
Prior to the election, Poilievre was widely expected to become Canada’s next prime minister before Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada unexpectedly altered the election’s dynamics.
Despite his party’s defeat, the Conservatives managed to win enough seats to form the largest official opposition in Canadian history.
However, without a seat in the House of Commons, Poilievre has been unable to serve as leader of the official opposition, limiting his ability to effectively challenge the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Conservative MP Damien Kurek, who previously held the Battle River-Crowfoot seat with nearly 83% of the vote in April, stepped down in June to allow Poilievre to run.
The bye election has attracted significant attention due to a protest movement calling for electoral reform, which has led to an unprecedented number of candidates entering the race.
The Longest Ballot Committee has recruited 203 candidates to run, protesting what they see as poorly structured electoral rules.
For the first time, Elections Canada will require voters to fill out a blank ballot with the name of their preferred candidate, rather than printing lengthy ballots.
Votes will still be counted even if the candidate’s name is misspelled. This move follows a similar protest in April, where the Longest Ballot Committee placed 90 candidates on the list in Poilievre’s Ottawa-area riding, significantly slowing down the vote count.
Barry Rueger, one of the 214 candidates contesting the vote, expressed concerns about Poilievre’s candidacy, questioning why Kurek would abandon his position as a member of parliament for a job as a lobbyist.
Rueger also wondered how Poilievre, having been defeated in his own riding in Ontario, would understand the needs of rural Alberta and fill the role of an MP.
“If I were one of the 53,684 people in Battle River-Crowfoot who voted for Mr Kurek, I would be angry right now,” Rueger wrote in the Globe and Mail. “And I’d be wondering how a candidate who had just been defeated in his own riding in Ontario was supposed to understand my needs, and fill the role of a rural Alberta MP”.