List of perennial candidates in Canada

A perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for public office without a reasonable chance of winning. While there is no generally accepted "number" of times a candidate must run before being considered "perennial", contemporary sources note that two or three failed candidacies, followed by another attempt, qualifies a candidate as perennial.^[1][2][3]

In Canada, perennial candidates may run with the support of small or fringe political parties, may attempt to become involved with mainstream parties without the backing of that party's membership and/or leadership executive, or may run municipally, where the influence of political parties is diminished.^[4]

There are few residency requirements for elected office in Canada. Candidates may run federally in any electoral district as long as they are a Canadian citizen over the age of 18 who is not disqualified based on profession (federal judges, provincial and territorial elected representatives, the Chief Electoral Officer, or Governor General), status as an incarcerated person, or after failing to submit a campaign financial return after a previous campaign.^[5] There is no requirement for a candidate to reside in the electoral district where they seek election.^[6] Provincial and municipal elections rules generally require a candidate reside within the jurisdiction broadly, but do not require a candidate to reside in the direct electoral district in which they seek elected office.

These lax rules allow perennial candidates to seek elected office across Canada. John Turmel, the Canadian perennial candidate who, according to Guinness World Records holds the records for the most elections contested and for the most elections lost, has sought the offices of Mayor, Member of Provincial Parliament, and Member of Parliament in 71 different jurisdictions across Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia, since 1979.^[7]

List of Perennial Candidates in Canada[edit]

Candidate		Primary place of residence		Notable Partisan Affiliation		Municipal campaigns	Provincial campaigns	Federal campaigns	Incomplete campaigns [note 1]	Total
		Municipality	Province							Total complete campaigns	Overall total
Enza "Supermodel" Anderson		Toronto	Ontario		Canadian Alliance	3	-	-	1	3	4
Donald Clarke Andrews		Toronto	Ontario		Nationalist Party of Canada	10	-	-	-	10	10
Michael Baldasaro		Hamilton	Ontario		Marijuana Party of Canada	9	1	5	2	15	17
Harry Bradley		Toronto	Ontario		Independent	27	-	-	-	27	27
José Breton		Quebec City	Quebec		Independent	-	5	-	-	5	5
David W. Bylsma		West Lincoln	Ontario		Christian Heritage	2	0	7	-	9	9
Douglas Campbell		Toronto	Ontario		Ontario New Democratic Party	6	2	2	-	10	10
Kevin Clarke		Toronto	Ontario		The Peoples Political Party	11	10	6	-	27	27
Ross Dowson		Toronto	Ontario		League for Socialist Action	9	-	2	-	11	11
Terry Duguid		Winnipeg	Manitoba		Liberal	3	1	6	-	10	10
Jim Enos		Hamilton	Ontario		Christian Heritage	1	4	4	-	9	9
Paul Fromm		Hamilton	Ontario		Canadians' Choice Party	8	2	2	-	12	12
Henri-Georges Grenier		Montreal	Quebec		various	-	-	13	-	13	13
Larry Heather		Calgary	Alberta		Christian Heritage	6	8	13	-	27	27
Ben Kerr		Toronto	Ontario		Independent	7	-	-	-	7	7
Yaqoob Khan		Toronto	Ontario		Independent	7	-	1	-	8	8
Simonne Lizotte		Nicolet	Quebec		Independent	4	2	-	-	6	6
Anne C. McBride		Toronto	Ontario		Independent	5	-	9	-	14	14
Patricia Métivier		Montreal	Quebec		various	7	5	8	1	24	25
Régent Millette		Laval	Quebec		Parti démocratie chrétienne	4	15	7	1	26	27
David Popescu		Sudbury	Ontario		Independent	7	7	6	-	20	20
Naomi Rankin		Edmonton	Alberta		Communist	-	9	10	-	19	19
Bob Smith		Toronto	Ontario		Nationalist Party of Canada	8	1	1	-	10	10
John Turmel		Brantford	Ontario		Pauper	14	49	45	1	108	109
Alex Tyrrell		Montreal	Quebec		Parti Vert	-	10	-	1	10	11
Don Woodstock		Winnipeg	Manitoba		Liberal	2	3	1		6	6
Nathalie Xian Yi Yan		Hamilton	Ontario		Independent	4	2	2	2	8	10

Perennial Candidates by region[edit]

Atlantic Canada[edit]

Quebec[edit]

Alex Tyrrell[edit]

Ontario[edit]

Enza "Supermodel" Anderson[edit]

Don Andrews[edit]

Donald Clarke Andrews (born Vilim Zlomislić) was the leader of the Nationalist Party of Canada, a white-supremacist unregistered political party active from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Andrews best result came in 1976, when he earned 5.3% of the vote for mayor of Toronto in a race against popular incumbent David Crombie. Andrews would often only contest those elections where he would be placed at the top of the ballot by virtue of his last name's alphabetical importance.

Michael Baldasaro[edit]

Douglas Campbell[edit]

Douglas Campbell was a teacher and writer from Toronto, Ontario. In 1962, Campbell ran an independent campaign for Parliament in the electoral district of St Paul's, running against future Governor General Roland Michener. Campbell launched three NDP leadership campaigns in the 1970s; he twice sought the position of Ontario NDP leader in the 1970 leadership election and also 1972 when he challenged incumbent Stephen Lewis. He also challenged David Lewis for the federal NDP leadership in 1973 and ran to replace Lewis in the 1975 New Democratic Party leadership election.

In 1988, Campbell ran against North York's incumbent mayor, Mel Lastman. A profile in the Toronto Star listed Campbell's age as 59 and residence as Gulliver Road in Toronto, as well as referencing a past campaign for the office of Mayor of Mississauga. He told the Star his campaign was an attempt to find a larger platform so he could campaign on issues such as "sanctions against South Africa, free trade and the Meech Lake Accord."^[8]

During Campbell's campaign for mayor of Toronto in 2003, he generated media attention when he invited the audience at an all-candidates meeting to his wife's memorial service.^[9] Campbell, whose age was listed as 72 during the Toronto mayoral campaign in 2006, was attacked in a National Post editorial for a statement all-candidates meeting where the candidate said voting for a capitalist mayor was like "voting to kill your fellow workers," and comparing Stephen Harper, Paul Martin, and Franklin D. Roosevelt to Adolf Hitler.^[10] He was quoted in Now Magazine as also saying "If you vote for a capitalist candidate, you're voting to kill children."^[11]

Bob Smith[edit]

Bob Smith (born Robert Wayne Smith) ran for federal, provincial, and municipal office 10 times from 1972 to 2006. His best result came in 1980 when he earned 1,319 votes in a race for school trustee in Toronto's Ward 8.

Manitoba[edit]

Saskatchewan[edit]

Alberta[edit]

British Columbia[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]