Third (and frivolous) Parties

I noticed a new political party on the Elections Canada website today.. the Western Block Party. This is its mission: "The primary objective of the Western Block Party is to create Western Canada as a free and independent nation." As you may have guessed, it's pretty much a western version of the Bloc Quebecois.

What's even more hilarious is its official logo:


Also.. sad to see the Trancendental Meditation movement's Natural Law Party deregistered this election. Federal funding for research in yogic flying would have been a great perk of having them in power.

While we're on the topic of Canadian political parties that rule, ever wonder what happened to the famed Rhino Party? If you don't remember them, they're the ones who proposed "instituting English, French and illiteracy as Canada's three official languages" and "annexing the United States, which would take its place as the third territory (after the Yukon and North-West Territories) in Canada's backyard, in order to raise the mean temperature of Canada by one degree Celsius."

Looking around Wikipedia I read up on all the parties that formed in its aftermath. I think I remember some of the Entartistes' antics involving a pie in the face of Chrétien among others. However, I did not know about Quebec's Parti Citron and their idea of a "zesty" lemon-based economy. Its website appears to be down, but there's an old article about them that was posted on the CBC website last year.

Some other parties unafilliated with the Rhino party came up as well, including Newfoundland's Canadian Extreme Wrestling Party: "In the April 2000 by-election in the federal riding of St. John's West, Newfoundland and Labrador, "Sailor King Moondog White" -- a former World Wrestling Federation (WWF) wrestler stood as an independent candidate for the Canadian Extreme Wrestling Party. Sailor White's campaign slogan was 'Parliament needs a Moondog.'"

In the last election, the Absolutely Absurd Party ran and, according to their website, promised to "Streamline the Department of Defense by replacing the Department with a crack, elite squad of Rock/Paper/Scissors commandos."

Out of Saskatchewan comes a new party, The Party Party!. They calimed to have tabled a bill in parliament to ban Jack Layton's moustache, citing: "besides the health issues related to the mustache, The Party Party was also quick to point out the enormous fiscal costs of maintaining the mustache. The Party Party estimates that Jack Layton's mustache will cost Canadian taxpayers over $37 billion in the upcoming year alone."

Of course, if all of the election issues only seem to dismay you, voting Undecided is now an option.