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Pierre Poilievre will return to the House of Commons after a resounding victory in the Aug. 18 Battle River—Crowfoot by-election. Of the 85,736 registered voters, 50,434 cast ballots. Poilievre received 40,548 votes — or 80.4 per cent.
See: Poilievre going back to House of Commons after easy victory in Alberta byelection
Dillon Anderson, a Callander resident, was also on the ballot. He received 10 votes.
“I finished in 17th place, and I couldn’t have asked for any more support being a parachute candidate,” Anderson said.
When Anderson announced his campaign in mid-July, he explained why someone living in Callander would want to run in an Alberta riding. His candidacy was part of the Longest Ballot Committee, organized by political activist Tomas Szuchewycz, who also served as Anderson’s Official Agent.
When BayToday spoke to Anderson in July, there were 29 candidates in Battle River-Crowfoot. By election night on Aug. 18, there were 219 candidates. When he launched his campaign, Anderson explained the Long Balloters want electoral reform, which would not allow candidates to run in regions where they do not live.
See: Callander resident joins Poilievre’s by-election ballot protest
Anderson said that he was doing the same as Poilievre — parachuting into a riding — a term used when candidates run in areas where they have no local ties. “I would argue that Mr. Poilievre is doing the same thing,” Anderson said. “He had a riding in Carleton that he represented for 20 years and abandoned, and the people effectively fired him and now he’s replacing a respected MP, Damien Kurek.”
Anderson never expected to win; from the outset, his campaign was intended as a political statement calling for electoral reform. In July Anderson noted, “It’s sad that our democracy allows somebody from outside the region to parachute in, like Mr. Poilievre and myself.”
Anderson also knows how divisive the Longest Ballot initiative has become. People have left “really nasty comments” on his social media, and he admitted, “It was hard to deal with mentally.” He added he had to make one social media page private because of the number of threats he received. “One candidate from the Longest Ballot had to withdraw because some personal information had been released online, so a lot of people went through a lot of things in this election.”
Despite losing, Anderson remains hopeful that electoral reform becomes an issue parliament raises in the fall. “It’s still a work in progress,” he said. “But Pierre Poilievre repeated last night that he wants to end the longest ballot scam. That’s how he worded it, so I’m interested to see what the opposition puts forward in the fall season.”
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
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