Disclaimer: This article is published under the Charlatan’s satire section, the Partisan. All quotes and names have been fabricated.
A group of Carleton students have announced they will boycott this year’s federal election, stating that Parliament is a slate system in need of reform.
Naming themselves No Slate Election (NoSE), the students said they will not be casting ballots in this election until Canada’s democracy allows for more independent candidates.
Mackenzie Queen, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, said he conducted research on Canada’s democracy after the last Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) election and was “disappointed” with his findings.
“I realized there were barely any individual candidates running and all the parties just follow the same ideas,” Queen said. “I was really looking forward to a fair election, but everyone’s working together to have the same parties in power. It’s literally the same guy running to be Prime Minister again. What the hell.”
Queen said he is currently in the process of drafting a lengthy Reddit post which he said is “guaranteed” to expose the corruption at Elections Canada and the organization’s quashing of independent candidates.
Other students in NoSE, such as Cam Kimball, a third-year commerce student, said other aspects of Canadian elections confuse them, including how parties keep their branding even after losing an election.
“They’re not even trying to be sneaky,” Kimball said. “Why haven’t the New Democrats changed their name to ‘One Democrat’ for this election?”
In a statement on Facebook, NoSE demanded the federal government hold a referendum to abolish parties and give every person who is interested in running for office $600 for their campaign.
“We know that $600 can go a long way for political candidates,” the statement reads. “Three hundred flyers, a couple of obscure TikToks and an ungodly amount of follow requests have been proven to be an effective campaign strategy. CUSA does it all the time. Plain and simple.”
Until these demands are met, NoSE members like fourth-year political science student John Cretin say they may never fully trust Canadian elections.
“I can’t help but feel like there are shadowy groups controlling everything from the back,” Cretin said. “Who keeps putting the same people in power? Oil industries? Big Pharma? Fraternities? Until change comes, I may never know.”
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
