The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - The Hypocrisy of the Longest Ballot Scam - Conservatives push to ban it

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here.

00:00:02.940 Hopefully we are going to be seeing this longest ballot committee nonsense coming to an end in the fall session of Parliament.

00:00:10.440 Vyropolyev and the Federal Conservative Party are pushing for legislation to be passed in order to prevent activists from flooding ballots with hundreds of fake candidates.

00:00:20.600 In this video today, I want to talk a bit about that proposed legislation as well as talk about the crushing hypocrisy of the longest ballot committee.

00:00:31.000 Because these people pretend that they care so much about democracy and they're just doing this activistic protest in order to get the system's attention and push for proportional representation or a single transferable voting system.

00:00:46.500 They don't actually care about democracy and they really don't care about making these changes.

00:00:51.640 They just care about harassing people who don't agree with them.

00:00:54.540 Because as I will get into later in this video, they keep losing every single time one of these different election systems is put to voters in different provinces around Canada.

00:01:05.160 But before we get into it, guys, if you like my political coverage, make sure to leave a like on this video, leave a comment on what you think about this whole situation, and subscribe if you are not yet a subscriber.

00:01:18.200 But here is Pierre Polyev on X talking about what the Conservatives want to see in new legislation passed this fall.

00:01:26.900 Pierre Polyev says,

00:01:27.720 By the way, they can also use a private member's bill to make these changes, but obviously parties don't usually like to give up private member's bills because you don't usually get many of them.

00:01:44.260 But I want to read through the recommendations they have in this letter and what they're calling for.

00:01:50.080 Some of it I agree with, some of it I don't agree with, in the sense that it might be a bit of an overkill solution.

00:01:56.920 But their first recommendation is raise the bar for candidate nominations by requiring 0.5% of the population in any given writing to sign, not just 100 people.

00:02:08.040 So if you want to become a candidate, your nomination forms, you must have 0.5% of the writing's population sign on to a nomination form.

00:02:17.900 Number two is require that each signature in support of a candidate be exclusive, with no signatory permitted to endorse more than one candidate in the same election.

00:02:28.540 And then number three up here is restrict official agents to representing only a single election candidate at any given time.

00:02:37.720 I actually think number three is pretty much all you really have to do.

00:02:41.900 I would make a little bit of an addendum and also mention that candidates cannot be official agents for other candidates.

00:02:49.340 Because the way I would see the longest ballot committee pivoting on number three is that if you sign up to be a candidate, you also sign up to be somebody's official agent.

00:02:59.340 And then it just basically, you know, becomes just a back padding circle where everyone is supporting everybody to become a candidate.

00:03:07.280 I don't necessarily agree with the other things that Polly and the Conservatives are pushing for.

00:03:14.120 The requiring 0.5% of the population of any given writing to sign, not just 100 people, is a little bit much.

00:03:22.300 Because some of these writings have 140,000 person populations.

00:03:27.380 And so if you need 0.5% of those people to sign, that's going to take you a while.

00:03:32.020 Now, considering that even if someone supports you, they may not necessarily want to sign the form, they may mess up signing the form, or your volunteers may not just be very good at getting people to sign the form.

00:03:42.280 They're not pushy enough about it.

00:03:43.940 Maybe they forget to mention it.

00:03:45.780 I really just think we could just raise the signature requirement to 250.

00:03:50.360 That's pretty doable for one person in two or three days if you're serious.

00:03:54.000 But, and then the saying that requiring each signature be exclusive may be a bit much because there's tons of people out there who will never sign anything.

00:04:04.000 And I don't think it's a bad thing that if a Liberal, a Conservative, and a Green candidate come to the same door that that person signs for all of them.

00:04:10.360 Because, you know, you guys are all serious candidates.

00:04:12.860 I'll sign for you.

00:04:14.120 I would actually, another recommendation I'd make, I wouldn't actually put in number one or number two.

00:04:19.280 Maybe you can raise the signature requirement a bit, you know, go from 100 to 200.

00:04:23.600 But one thing I would recommend is that if you're going to run in a riding, you don't have to live there.

00:04:28.760 I don't care if you live somewhere or not because you end up in these weird situations where you can't live in a, you can't run in a riding, even though basically that riding's boundary is right across the street from you.

00:04:38.300 I think if you're a serious candidate, you can run wherever you please.

00:04:41.840 But I think you should have to show up in person in that riding.

00:04:44.940 I think you should have to go to a district office within that riding or maybe set up in the closest large municipality, like in a place like Battle River, Crowfoot.

00:04:54.420 It's a large riding.

00:04:55.300 So maybe you can have a district office in Calgary people can go to.

00:04:58.700 And then there's another office in there that Elections Canada can verify that you're the actual person who wants to run. 0.98

00:05:04.140 I think that would clear this up immediately because it's really, it's going to be very hard in most ridings to find 150 idiots who want to put their name on a ballot as fake candidates. 0.94

00:05:13.240 It's easier when your draw area is the entire country. 0.95

00:05:17.760 But if you then require someone in Newfoundland to show up and actually prove that they're a serious candidate, they're not going to do that because that's a large cost to show up for a joke.

00:05:29.400 And that's not, you can't reimburse for that.

00:05:31.880 Or, again, I actually like the Japanese method where what you do if you're a serious candidate is you pay $3,000 to run.

00:05:40.220 And maybe we could make it that the donation limit to your own campaign, if you're the candidate, can be raised to this limit.

00:05:46.640 But if you're going to run, you give Elections Canada $3,000, $4,000, $5,000.

00:05:51.500 The amount could depend on whatever we figure out.

00:05:55.340 But you get certain amounts of guaranteed advertising.

00:05:59.800 Like a Canada Post is going to deliver a piece of your literature to every single household in the riding.

00:06:05.700 If you put that money down, you're saying, I'm serious.

00:06:07.940 I want people to know about me.

00:06:09.320 I'm actually going to hit the doors.

00:06:10.920 And, yes, put me on a bunch of billboards.

00:06:12.880 Put me on some, you know, put me, send my literature to voters in the riding.

00:06:18.000 That would be a good way of solving all this, you know, actually requiring a certain barrier of entry that denotes that you're serious.

00:06:26.280 I know people are arguing, well, you know, some people who don't have a lot of money may want to run for office.

00:06:30.900 It's like, then get some donors.

00:06:32.600 It's not difficult.

00:06:33.860 If you're saying that nobody believes in you and you can't even scratch together a couple thou to run, then don't run honestly.

00:06:40.220 Unless it's like a small town mayor or ship where you probably don't even need to spend anything.

00:06:43.940 When it comes to a federal office, you probably need more than 30 people who actually believe in you who are willing to give you some cash. 0.98

00:06:51.920 But, anyways, now I want to get into what is the stupid hypocrisy of longest ballot committee. 0.98

00:06:59.700 Because these people will lash out at anyone who says that they're being horrible and that, you know, or people. 0.98

00:07:05.360 I had one of their people attack me because I nearly said I just don't really have any sympathy that someone threw a rock through your window for constantly putting your name on all these ballots around the country.

00:07:16.640 Should people do that?

00:07:17.980 No.

00:07:18.640 Am I shocked?

00:07:19.860 Do I feel bad for them?

00:07:21.340 Not really.

00:07:22.340 It's just something that's going to happen when you're effectively harassing people around the country.

00:07:26.500 Oh, I'm not harassing people.

00:07:28.440 You're harassing people.

00:07:30.060 I'm just one name on a ballot.

00:07:32.100 No.

00:07:32.960 No.

00:07:33.220 You're encouraging other people to sign up.

00:07:34.780 This is very difficult for scrutineers to actually look over.

00:07:39.920 It's very difficult for people to count the ballots.

00:07:42.280 It's especially difficult for people, the average person, it's more difficult to vote.

00:07:46.280 Imagine if someone's old, has bad vision, someone has mobility issues, and now they have to vote on a two-meter-long ballot like what will probably end up occurring in Battle River Crowfoot.

00:07:57.600 No.

00:07:58.040 You're harassing people.

00:07:59.460 But I want to get into the idea that they're just pushing for proportional representation.

00:08:03.300 The system isn't listening to them, and so they have to do this in order to get their message out there.

00:08:09.280 Well, there has been three provinces where they have had referendums on electoral reform.

00:08:15.600 And you will not be shocked to hear that in all three provinces, in sometimes three referendums in two of them, they lost every single time.

00:08:24.680 Let's start off in probably what should be their best province to do something like this.

00:08:30.320 Maybe you could argue on the third one we're going to get to.

00:08:33.520 Maybe better.

00:08:34.680 But in British Columbia, they have had referendums on electoral reform three times.

00:08:42.260 One time in 2005.

00:08:44.200 Second time in 2009.

00:08:46.080 Third time in 2018.

00:08:47.800 And they lost every time.

00:08:51.280 So on May 17, 2005, which was the same date as the provincial election, naturally it's smarter to do a referendum when more people are turning out to vote anyways.

00:09:00.080 The question was, should British Columbia change to be BCC STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens Assembly on electoral reform?

00:09:11.740 STV is single transferable vote.

00:09:13.760 And that basically means that after the first round of voting, if nobody's at 50%, whoever's candidate didn't get above a certain percentage, or basically you get everyone whose candidate is below a certain percentage, your second vote goes to the next person.

00:09:31.560 And so then if the person who was in first and only had like 35% the first time that has 42% the second time and is still leading, they win.

00:09:40.220 If they had more than 50% the first on the first ballot, they automatically win, obviously.

00:09:46.260 It's a bit of a complex system.

00:09:47.900 But in 2005, they actually did the best.

00:09:51.600 The yes vote for changing this got 57.69% of the vote, which is impressive.

00:09:57.600 No got 42.31%.

00:09:59.860 But the thing that you have to know about this referendum vote is that the yes side got to advertise.

00:10:10.360 That organization that was mentioned above, the organization, the Citizens Assembly on electoral reform, they had a budget.

00:10:17.480 They were allowed to go around marketing why people should vote yes.

00:10:20.340 And so when you see a bunch of signs saying vote yes for electoral reform, vote for STV everywhere, naturally it's going to become the default choice.

00:10:29.080 And they still didn't win because you needed to get 60% of the vote because naturally we're not going to change the electoral system based on a 51 to 49 margin.

00:10:38.360 And some people just slept in that day or there was a rainstorm in the north and a bunch of people against it didn't show up.

00:10:45.100 Now, you're going to need to have a decisive result.

00:10:48.640 And they didn't have it, despite the fact that the yes side was the only side that was allowed to actually campaign.

00:10:54.340 They were the only ones who had an official campaigning organization going around pushing for their side of the issue.

00:11:01.080 And so Gordon Campbell, who at the time, the premier of British Columbia, who could have just said, no, you lost fair and square.

00:11:08.660 In fact, you lost not even fair and square.

00:11:11.500 You actually had every advantage and you still lost.

00:11:14.400 That we'll rerun the referendum in four years at the next provincial election.

00:11:21.060 And but with the stipulation that the no side also gets to be able to spend money.

00:11:27.500 So what they did is each side, the organization that had the most obvious clout as the main organization pushing for this.

00:11:34.100 So the organization that collected the signatures the first time to get this on a referendum ballot, they got five hundred thousand dollars from the government.

00:11:42.120 And the no side that had the most support in terms of of fund of their own fundraising and signatures and members and whatnot.

00:11:49.480 They got to represent the no side and got to use the money.

00:11:52.520 And actually, the no side was represented by someone from the NDP.

00:11:56.260 So like the yes side is usually NDP and the no side was NDP.

00:11:59.460 This wasn't like political in the sense that, like, you know, a bunch of B.C. liberals were showing up to vote no.

00:12:05.760 But all the NDP and the Greens were showing up to vote yes.

00:12:08.720 In fact, usually politicians supported the yes side outside the B.C. liberals because it was like the good it was like it was a good look at the time.

00:12:17.300 And in 2009, they got absolutely walloped.

00:12:23.480 The existing electoral system first past the post got 60.91 percent of the vote.

00:12:28.680 It actually got the supermajority that if it was flipped, the result was flipped, that would have actually changed the system.

00:12:35.660 They just needed to prevent the yes side from getting to 60.

00:12:38.620 But in fact, they got to 61 percent.

00:12:40.800 Single transferable vote electoral system got only 39.09 percent of the vote.

00:12:47.300 Well, you know, maybe there was just not enough public education on what they were pushing for.

00:12:52.580 Well, they did another vote in 2018, this time on having a like having like proportional representation.

00:12:59.160 What they were going to do in 2018, there was first a vote on do you want to change it?

00:13:04.500 And then the second vote is what would you want it to be changed to?

00:13:07.300 But the what do you want it to be changed to didn't even really matter because they got absolutely walloped again, even harder.

00:13:15.700 A proportional representation voting system got 38.7 percent of the vote and the current first past the post system got 61.30.

00:13:23.920 So, yeah, I'm not exactly setting the world on fire.

00:13:28.900 You better start just dumping fake candidates on ballots because apparently the system's not listening to you.

00:13:34.920 These guys don't care about voters.

00:13:36.800 They don't care about what voters are telling them election to election.

00:13:40.220 The voters don't like the change.

00:13:41.840 The closest they got was in a dishonest election where nobody even knew what the no side's position was.

00:13:48.440 And the entire province got flooded with vote yes propaganda.

00:13:52.820 So you even in that one couldn't win.

00:13:55.300 But let's jump over.

00:13:56.480 Let's go west to east.

00:13:58.020 Let's go to Ontario.

00:14:00.040 Ontario election reform referendum, which jumped on the bandwagon that was started in 2005.

00:14:05.520 And they had one take place in 2007.

00:14:10.020 And so they basically asked people what the electoral system should be.

00:14:14.300 Mixed member proportional representation and first past the post.

00:14:18.220 Mixed member is basically having like mega districts in which based on the percentage of the vote, that district will elect certain people.

00:14:26.620 It's proportional representation with a little bit more of a spin on it.

00:14:30.540 So it's not just like you get the exact proportion of the vote in the province.

00:14:37.020 You need a specific percentage of the vote in a specific region in order to elect MPPs.

00:14:43.220 And which makes sense if you're going to do something like this.

00:14:46.460 It should be like Toronto and northern Ontario.

00:14:50.320 Like you should basically have a concentration of support.

00:14:54.640 Although I find the proportional representation people hypocritical because they talk so much about how we need proper representation.

00:15:02.340 But then they have all these stipulations.

00:15:04.060 But no, we need a 5% threshold and it's going to be regionalized.

00:15:07.800 And then we're going to do this and that.

00:15:09.500 It's like, do you believe in proportional representation or not?

00:15:11.780 Or is it because you want to change to a system that benefits your current favorite party?

00:15:16.340 Because you'll notice a lot of people who like proportional representation are people who vote for the NDP or the Green Party or the PPC.

00:15:25.580 It's parties that, yeah, technically would get seats if you change the system, but can't actually prove that they are popular in a concentrated area.

00:15:34.100 They've never actually tried to expand their appeal.

00:15:37.220 They've never worked harder at campaigning.

00:15:39.580 They just basically say the election rules are not helping them.

00:15:42.580 It's like, okay, well, this has been the system.

00:15:45.120 You knew what you were running in.

00:15:46.560 The PPC, by the way, I believe they spent more than $12 million since they became a thing in 2018.

00:15:52.960 Not a single seat won.

00:15:54.600 Imagine if they concentrated that money over time and started really hitting northern Ontario or southern Ontario.

00:16:01.000 Or they just jammed money into Maxime Bernier's riding a Bose.

00:16:04.180 Or somewhere in Saskatchewan.

00:16:05.960 Somewhere in Alberta.

00:16:07.140 Somewhere in Manitoba.

00:16:08.320 Like Portage Lisger.

00:16:09.300 And they just put money there constantly.

00:16:11.120 Talked to people constantly.

00:16:12.820 They had a headquarters set up there.

00:16:14.340 Everyone knew who they were.

00:16:15.920 No, they just fart money around every four years and they don't get anything done.

00:16:19.720 And mostly just paying big salaries.

00:16:22.460 But in this election, again, in Ontario, in 2007, first past the post won with 63.18% of the vote to 36.

00:16:32.120 Now, maybe the proportional representation people are going to start whining and saying, well, this means that 36% of the voting system should now be proportional representation.

00:16:42.140 But whenever something is truly democratic, a vote where to change the system, you just got to get to 60% because it's a big change.

00:16:49.280 You got to show that a lot of people are on board.

00:16:51.060 It's not just a fluke.

00:16:52.300 They can't handle it.

00:16:53.680 They can't win with a position that they will tell people is super, super popular.

00:16:58.020 But now let's go even further east.

00:17:01.900 Let's go to a province we don't talk about as much.

00:17:06.220 And that is PEI.

00:17:08.720 So they've done quite a few of these, actually.

00:17:11.780 Quite a few referendums over time to change the system.

00:17:14.960 And none of them have done very well.

00:17:17.920 I want to, when was the first one?

00:17:19.360 Sometimes hard to find when they've done the first ones.

00:17:21.540 I can at least show you.

00:17:25.000 I think they've done, like, 2018, 2019.

00:17:27.420 It's pretty massive.

00:17:31.960 Okay.

00:17:32.780 I think, yeah.

00:17:34.860 Let's start in 2005 because then they did one in 2016, then 2019.

00:17:39.380 So in 2005, in the great province of Prince Edward Island, who also has a great flag, by the way,

00:17:46.140 they, well, Prince Edward Island referendum on electoral reform.

00:17:49.780 Should Prince Edward Island change the mixed member proportional system as presented by the Commission on PEI's electoral future?

00:17:57.300 No.

00:17:58.360 63.58% of the vote.

00:18:00.700 There's a bit of a pattern emerging on how little people like this.

00:18:03.780 Let's jump ahead to 2018 or 2016.

00:18:06.260 This one was a little bit odd where they kind of, like, they have, like, a, basically you would vote in the first round on which system you liked the most.

00:18:16.260 And, yeah, so, like, it's kind of a bit odd.

00:18:20.760 Like, first past the post actually still wins in this thing, 31%, with the next closest being mixed member proportional representation.

00:18:27.320 And when it went to the vote on which one they want, mixed member got 52.42 and first past the post got 42.84.

00:18:37.180 Now, I also blame a little bit of this on just the way that it's all pitched.

00:18:41.720 It's a very complex question.

00:18:43.140 And even in that question, it's a fairly indecisive result where, if you actually see how it works, look at this.

00:18:51.500 52 plus 42, to my knowledge, and I'm not very good at math, is 94%.

00:18:58.020 So, either a bunch of people didn't fill out another option or they just scuffed their ballots because it was too complicated.

00:19:04.480 But then when you jump ahead to 2019, which I will bring up in just a second here, and 2019 was the redo.

00:19:13.140 Let's have a straight question between two options.

00:19:17.340 Let's not make it too complicated.

00:19:19.280 What do people want between the mixed member and the keeping it the same and making it the current first past the post?

00:19:26.840 So, electoral reform referendum, April 23rd, 2019, should Prince Edward of Rhode Island change its voting system to a mixed member proportional voting system?

00:19:35.400 And remember, this is the same question in 2005.

00:19:37.300 They already lost.

00:19:38.660 And then, in 2019, they still lost.

00:19:44.940 No for changing it.

00:19:46.280 Got 51.74% of the vote.

00:19:48.440 Yes, got 48.26%.

00:19:49.840 So, my thing with the longest ballot committee and their shenanigans is these people don't care about democracy.

00:19:58.300 It's only democracy when they win.

00:20:01.220 They haven't been winning these referendums.

00:20:03.440 So, ergo, it's the system or the establishment that's holding them back.

00:20:08.380 I had a guy argue with me on X the other day saying, well, the only reason that the referendum side, the pro-reform side, hasn't been able to win is because there's a lot of money in the first-past-the-post lobby.

00:20:23.600 It's like, the first-past-the-post lobby, I didn't know that existed.

00:20:27.560 By the way, did I mention in 2018 in British Columbia when the pro-reform side got walloped the absolute hardest?

00:20:35.240 Do you know who endorsed the yes side?

00:20:39.820 It was not just Sonia Firstenow, the Green Party leader.

00:20:43.100 It was, in fact, John Horgan, who was then to become the next premier of British Columbia.

00:20:50.840 The liberals got destroyed in that election.

00:20:53.880 Well, not quite destroyed.

00:20:54.760 It was very close.

00:20:55.580 But considering it was close, but the Greens and the NDP, in terms of the popular vote, won by quite a wide margin, it demonstrates that not only did the BC liberals all vote no, but a large portion of the Greens and the NDP would have also voted no.

00:21:11.980 So these people who are usually more on the progressive side of politics, who think their positions are super popular, have been proven to time and time again that people don't agree.

00:21:22.020 People don't want to change the system.

00:21:24.220 It's a system we've had for a long time.

00:21:26.300 And simply changing it doesn't just make things more fair.

00:21:29.180 Changing the voting system changes a lot about politics, especially if we were pure proportional representation.

00:21:35.180 If you can get 0.23% of the vote in Canada, you get a seat, because that, if we take 343 seats and we divide it by 100, or divide 100 by 343 seats, that's how much you need.

00:21:47.960 Do you really think we're just going to have the same parties that we have now running, or do you think everyone's going to start a party?

00:21:54.340 Not like, literally, I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but do you think the Christian Heritage Party is now going to put a candidate in every single riding,

00:22:02.040 or they're going to try and make sure their party is on the federal ballot?

00:22:06.920 Because if they get 0.23% of the vote, they already basically get that without even running candidates in every riding.

00:22:13.860 Wouldn't they try a little bit harder in order to get a few Christian Heritage MPs?

00:22:18.380 Wouldn't a lot of parties try a lot harder because now suddenly you can get an elected MP for not that much trouble?

00:22:25.540 That's the problem.

00:22:26.320 I think electoral systems are trying to get us coherent governments.

00:22:30.920 Proportional representation does not get anything coherent.

00:22:33.540 I have never liked the idea that we are going to overrule 42% of people who all voted for one thing with 52% of people who didn't actually all vote for one thing,

00:22:45.800 but 27% of them voted for the Socialist Party, and 14% voted for the Green Party, and 5% voted for the Democracy Party,

00:22:54.920 and another 8% voted for animal welfare or whatever, because that's what goes on in proportional representation systems.

00:23:02.440 Even when they have a threshold, it just becomes chaos.

00:23:05.400 Nothing ever changes because every time someone gets tired of voting for the socialists in Spain,

00:23:10.280 and this is how it works, Spain has basically had a socialist government since the 70s.

00:23:15.500 Every time people get sick of the socialists, because people have egos naturally,

00:23:19.700 they don't want to say, well, I've been voting wrong.

00:23:21.720 They're like, no, no, the party was just not doing it right.

00:23:25.160 And so they vote for the Communist Party, or they vote for the Eco-Socialist Party,

00:23:29.120 or they vote for labor or whatever.

00:23:31.160 And people don't just go from socialist to conservative.

00:23:33.800 And so Spain has basically just been sitting in a stalled position for decades, since the 1970s,

00:23:41.840 because the socialists can always cobble together a new coalition in the proportional representation system,

00:23:47.660 at the same time that the Republican and the conservative-type parties in Spain

00:23:53.480 are actually starting to beat them on popular vote.

00:23:56.880 They get more popular vote than the socialists,

00:23:59.120 but the socialists can cobble something together every single time.

00:24:01.980 Anyways, so hopefully that wasn't too long-winded for you guys,

00:24:07.140 but I think it's important for people to know these people do not have a righteous cause.

00:24:11.140 In fact, they're losers who are upset that they lost in the past, 0.68

00:24:14.580 and now they're here to take it out on the system, 0.96

00:24:16.340 because we won't just bend their will and reform the entire system 0.99

00:24:21.500 in line with what a bunch of random idiots want us to do by flooding ballots. 0.96

00:24:27.100 Anyways, so that should be it for me today, guys. 0.95

00:24:29.880 Make sure to like the video, subscribe to the channel, leave a comment, do all that great stuff,

00:24:33.660 and I'll talk to you guys later.

The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - July 24, 2025

The Hypocrisy of the Longest Ballot Scam - Conservatives push to ban it

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