C.B. ridings ready the bigger ballots

Fifteen candidates to fight over island’s two seats

SYDNEY — Voters will likely be casting the longest ballots ever handed out for a federal election in Cape Breton when they head to the polls Oct. 21.

So far 15 candidates — eight in Cape Breton-Canso and seven in Sydney-Victoria — are vying for the island’s two seats. Both are records for the ridings and their various predecessors, and more people could join the campaign before Monday’s deadline to file nomination papers.

Cape Breton University political science professor Tom Urbaniak said the crowded field of candidates is a sign people are dissatisfied with the political system.

“We do see periods in Canadian history where the old brokerage parties, the big tent parties, lose their resonance with large chunks of the population,” he said.

“There is something bubbling in society — there’s no question, this is happening really throughout the Western world. There are challenges to the old orders. We’ll wait to see what the numbers are for the final numbers of candidates but there’s clearly large swaths of the population that are not intimately attached to the old party system.”

In Cape Breton-Canso, the eight-person race features the traditional Conservative (Alfie MacLeod), Liberal (Mike Kello

way) and NDP (Laurie Suitor) contenders, joined by Green Party nominee Clive Doucet, Billy Joyce of the People's Party of Canada, Darlene Lynn LeBlanc for the National Citizens Alliance, Rhinoceros Party candidate Angus Walker, and Independent entrant Kenzie MacNeil.

In Sydney-Victoria, Jaime Battiste (Liberal), Eddie Orrell (Conservative) and Jodi McDavid (NDP) are carrying their party banners. Lois Foster represents the Green Party and Randy Joy leads the Veteran’s Coalition Party of Canada, which he founded, into its first election, with a pair of Independents, Michelle Dockrill and Archie MacKinnon, rounding out the list of seven.

While the chances of a fringe candidate winning are usually slim, they can still have a big impact on an election — particularly in close races.

“The prospects for minor parties or Independents are difficult in our system, but the prospects are not impossible for minor parties,” said Urbaniak.

“But the other dynamic here is how the smaller players hive votes off from the larger players. Where would those votes have gone otherwise? We have the People’s Party in the running and it is fielding candidates everywhere. So far, it’s polling usually at best three per cent, but where is that three per cent coming from? Most analysts will say it’s quite likely from the Conservatives. That could make a difference in terms of seat counts and close races.”

The number of candidates will also make a difference in the size of ballots handed out at polling stations next month. People won’t have to worry about squinting or using a magnifying glass to see the names crammed together, according to Elections Canada. Instead, the ballots will be printed longer for Cape Breton-Canso and SydneyVictoria to accommodate the number of people running.

“Everything else will be the same — the width, the font, the size of the font, the colour, the white circle next to the name,” said Elections Canada spokeswoman Francoise Enguehard.

“It will simply go to the printer and they will make it longer, according to the number of names.”