The Canadian election is in full swing with five parties qualifying for the English language debates: Conservatives, Liberals, NDP, Greens and the PPC (People’s Party of Canada).
But what about the more niche political parties that don’t have enough public support to get into the main debates? There are many other political parties in this country that never get enough publicity to be known by most Canadians.
These parties include the Animal Protection Party, Christian Heritage Party, Marxist- Leninist Party of Canada and the Communist Party of Canada.
The Animal Protection Party was started in 2005 after the Animal Alliance of Canada and Environmental Voters party merged. The party was started by Liz White, an animal-rights activist.
The party is growing with a total of 17 candidates running this federal election.
One its main policies is to reduce our reliance and consumption of animal products and to make a transition to a more plant-based diet. They say that livestock takes up 30 per cent of the planet’s land: reducing that will help the fight against climate change.
Ellen Papenburg, 65, a first-time candidate for the party running in the Kitchener Centre district, has been an animal activist in her home country of the Netherlands since she was 22. “We helped youngsters who wanted to become vegetarian and often there was a conflict at home with their parents and we’d say ‘no be patient with your parents’ and then you can get out at some point and be on your own,” she said.
She was once part of the NDP and ran in the 2011 federal election as a candidate in the Perth-Wellington district. She came in second with a total of 9,861 votes.
The Christian Heritage Party is a right-wing party that was started in 1987 in Hamilton, Ont. They want the country to be governed based on the morals of Christianity.
This makes their policies socially conservative, which means they’re against abortion rights and gay marriage. Rod Taylor is the current leader of the party and was elected at the party convention in 2014.
A party on the left-wing that is not part of the debate is the Communist Party of Canada. The party started in 1921 in a barn near Guelph, Ont, when it was illegal to start a Communist party in Canada. Liz Rowely has been the leader of the party since 2016.
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