Mark Pack

Fake phone calls, public nudity and a party saying ‘don’t vote for us’: the Saanich-Gulf Islands contest

By | Thu 4th December 2008 - 1:20 pm

Although I’m not exactly a stranger to writing about US elections, I do generally feel that they get too much attention compared with those of other countries. Canadian, Australian and New Zealand elections all potentially provide many campaigning lessons, have the convenience of being heavily covered online in those countries in the English language, and indeed are really better prospects for lessons for the UK as their electoral and political systems are much more similar to Britain’s than America’s is.

So in order to redress the balance a little, here’s a pointer to a controversial Canadian election which, I suspect, had it been say a US Senate race, would have received frequent mentions online here.

It’s the Saanich-Gulf Islands constituency contest from the last Canadian elections, featuring a cabinet minister in fear of losing his seat, faked phone calls, public nudity, police unwilling to investigate allegations of electoral fraud, a party saying ‘don’t vote for our candidate’ and questions over whether campaigning by outside bodies broke the law. (The last point being one that is of most relevance in drawing lessons for the future of UK elections.)

So read on here to find out what happened earlier this year.

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