Dan Knight

Lawmakers confront organizer Tomas Szuchewycz for flooding ridings with placeholder candidates, targeting Pierre Poilievre’s seat, and wasting public resources.

A House of Commons committee hearing erupted into pointed exchanges Tuesday as MPs pressed Tomas Szuchewycz, the man behind the Longest Ballot Committee (LBC), a fringe protest group that set out to disrupt Canada’s federal election by nominating dozens of placeholder candidates in single ridings.

Szuchewycz’s most notorious move came in Carleton — the riding of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, where the ballot swelled to 91 names, stretching nearly a metre and forcing Elections Canada to redesign how it printed and handled the vote. The LBC framed the stunt as a protest against Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system. But to most voters, it looked nothing like a principled reform campaign. What they saw was an effort aimed squarely at Poilievre, meant to bury his name among a wall of nobodies and turn the vote into a farce.

Elections Canada had to scramble to manage the chaos: printing extra‑long ballots, re‑training workers, and creating a last‑minute write‑in workaround in Battle River–Crowfoot to keep ballots usable. Seniors and disabled voters complained about the physical size and complexity of the ballot; poll workers faced new logistical headaches; public money was wasted.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Szuchewycz showed no contrition and offered no practical alternative to the system he had tried to upend. Instead, he accused MPs of having a “conflict of interest” in writing election law and demanded that power be handed to an undefined “permanent, non‑partisan body” — without explaining who would select it, how it would operate, or how it would be accountable to Canadians.

The LBC, whose actions led to metre-long ballots in ridings like Carleton (91 candidates) and Battle River–Crowfoot (86), claims to oppose Canada’s first-past-the-post system. But when asked how his proposed independent reform body would be formed, selected, or held accountable, Szuchewycz had no answers.

Conservative MP Michael Cooper led the charge, accusing Szuchewycz of overseeing a signature-harvesting scheme that involved electors signing blank nomination forms—potentially in violation of the Canada Elections Act. He tabled a January 2024 tweet and an August 2024 YouTube video showing organizers gathering signatures under the claim that candidate names would be “filled in later.”

Szuchewycz denied the accusation, claiming nomination papers had either candidate names or the phrase “all candidates” filled in. But when he tried to discredit Cooper’s evidence by calling it “AI-generated,” the committee chair issued a warning for casting doubt on the authenticity of a Member’s documents without basis. The comment was withdrawn under pressure.

Still, Cooper was unsatisfied, warning Szuchewycz that misleading Parliament could amount to contempt.

Other witnesses—experts and former elected officials—were equally critical of the LBC’s tactics. Dr. Lori Turnbull, a professor at Dalhousie University, called the stunt “undesirable” and a “waste of resources,” though she praised Elections Canada for adapting quickly by allowing a write-in workaround in Battle River–Crowfoot to avoid printing a literal wall of names.

Professor Peter Loewen of Cornell University added that the LBC’s ballot-stuffing “violates the spirit” of competitive democracy and burdens front-line elections staff with unnecessary logistical chaos. He warned that a third-party group acting like a political party without oversight was a loophole that needed closing.

Meanwhile, former Liberal MP Louis-Philippe Sauvé described the real-world toll of the stunt: longer lineups, stressed poll workers, and accessibility hurdles for elderly and visually impaired voters.

In stark contrast to these grounded critiques, Szuchewycz’s testimony revolved around vague accusations of “conflict of interest” by MPs and a call to remove Parliament from electoral reform altogether. No constitutional roadmap. No governance model. No practical enforcement mechanism.

At the end of the day, what Tomas Szuchewycz has done isn’t just a stunt, it’s an insult. He claims Canadians “know what he’s protesting,” but let’s be honest: most voters had no clue this was about electoral reform. What they saw was a campaign to flood ballots with nonsense names in key ridings, especially against the Leader of the Opposition, and create chaos for chaos’s sake.

The takeaway wasn’t a conversation about democracy. It was a spectacle, and one that mocked the very voters he pretends to represent. Lets be clear, This wasn’t activism, it was ego masquerading as principle. And it reeked of entitlement.

Tomas Szuchewycz is the embodiment of unchecked privilege: a man who hijacked our electoral process, wasted taxpayer dollars, and offered nothing in return but smug contempt for the very democracy that gave him the space to pull his stunt.

He claims Canadians understood his message. They didn’t. Most people saw a confusing mess, an attack on the Opposition Leader, and a joke made at the expense of voters, poll workers, and the electoral system itself.

So yes — reform is coming. And it can’t come soon enough.
Parliament must not just close the loopholes it should make sure that when someone deliberately sabotages the integrity of an election, they are held accountable, including being forced to repay the public for the cost of their chaos.

Because in a democracy, you have the right to protest.
But not the right to turn an election into a farce on the public’s dime.