Party to lose status at end of this month
Canadian Action Party, which last ran candidates in Kelowna in 2006, de-registered by Elections Canada
They may have a billboard, but they’re about to go out of business.
The Canadian Action Party, a fringe political outfit that has fielded candidates in past federal elections in Kelowna, has been deregistered by Elections Canada.
Too few of the party’s members bothered to confirm their involvement with the organization, says the Lumby man who serves as the Canadian Action Party’s national membership chairman.
“People are so darn lazy, including our own members,” Neville O’Grady, 81, said Sunday.
“They all got a big brown envelope in the mail from Elections Canada, but they must have just thrown it in the garbage rather than opened it to find out what was inside,” O’Grady said.
Formal de-registration of the party, founded in 1997, will take place on March 31, Elections Canada says. That prevents it from doing things like issuing tax receipts for donations.
There are 16 registered federal parties in Canada.
Along with the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP, there’s the Animal Protection Party of Canada, the Alliance of the North, the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada and the Pirate Party.
Every three years, parties must show to Elections Canada’s satisfaction they have at least 250 members to retain their registration status. Recently, Elections Canada has been more stringent in verifying those names, complains the Pirate Party, which is at risk of being de-registered.
“Elections Canada is essentially asking us for 750 members to sign the forms,” Pirate Party president Travis McCrea writes on the group’s website.
“Instead of the old system which required us to get a 25 per cent buffer, the new system requires that we achieve a 250 per cent buffer. This is acting well outside of a reasonable view of the Elections Act.”
The Pirate Party, which says it stands for “science and reason” despite what it acknowledges is a “silly name,” has launched a legal challenge to Elections Canada’s new membership verification system.
Just two months ago, the Canadian Action Party put up a billboard along Highway 97 on the Westbank First Nation reserve. It was a rare sign of life for a group whose main message is that governments at all levels should finance operations using Bank of Canada funds.
O’Grady believes the Canadian Action Party can get registered again to contest the 2019 federal election.
“We’re not dead,” he says. “People are starting to realize we really only have one party in Canada right now, despite the different names of the Liberals and Conservatives.
“Nothing will ever change, at least not for the better anyway, until we elect a party that really has the best interests of Canadians at heart,” O’Grady said.
The Canadian Action Party ran candidates in Kelowna during the 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections, drawing an average of one per cent of the vote.