Fringe Party Profiles: The Marijuana Party of Canada

The Marijuana Party of Canada does not want your vote. Their current leader, Blair T. Longley, is very clear about that. He has a long history of active membership in fringe parties, including the Greens, Rhinos and Quebec's Bloc pot, but this time around, he believes that a vote for his party, or any of the other fringe parties, is tantamount to throwing your vote away. His campaign, after all, is essentially devoted to one issue — the legalization of marijuana — and the biggest threat to that cause is Stephen Harper. So instead of asking you to vote for him, Longley is asking you to vote strategically to ensure the Conservatives don't win a majority.

Still, in the last federal election, the Marijuana Party ran eight candidates, who combined to receive 2,298 votes. That was 0.02% of the ballots cast. They finished 12th of the 19 parties who ran, right after the Canadian Action Party and before the Rhinoceros Party.

We recently asked Longley a few questions about his party and his thoughts on the current campaign. Here's what he had to say:


How would you describe your party to a voter who isn't already familiar with it?

The Marijuana Party began as a single issue party raising the view that cannabis should not be criminal. The good old glory days of the Marijuana Party were between 2000 and 2003. In 2004, the elections laws were changed in ways that effectively wiped us out. After that big parties make money from elections, while small parties go broke.

We fought, but finally lost in 2008, a court case against the unfairness that votes for big parties are worth $2 per year each to those parties, while votes for smaller parties are worth nothing. After we lost that court case, there is no longer any practical reason to run more than one Candidate, and no practical reason to ask voters to vote for our Candidates.

The interest of the Canadian cannabis community is to defeat Conservative Party Candidates.

We recommend that voters look at the past results in their own riding, which can be learned by using the Voter Information Service search engines provided by Elections Canada's website. Clicking on the last tab of information on any particular electoral district provides the results from the past few elections. Voters could judge which alternative party is most likely to be able to defeat the Conservative in their particular riding. In most cases that means voting for the Liberal Party, or the Bloc Québecois within the province of Québec, while, in some cases, the best strategic vote to defeat the Conservatives is to vote for the New Democratic Party. We want people to use their vote strategically, to try to defeat the Conservatives, by voting for whomever could defeat them, in any given particular electoral district.

Of course, strategic voting usually sucks, but the alternative is far worse. Therefore, we do not want people to vote for the Marijuana Party. (We are only running Candidates in a few ridings, and so the vast majority of Canadians will not have a Marijuana Party Candidate on their ballots anyway.)

The Marijuana Party was built on the idea that cannabis should not be criminal. However, the Conservative Party wants to criminalize cannabis even MORE!!!

Since 2005, the Harper Government has been attempting to enact mandatory minimum jail sentences for cannabis "crimes" that only exist because of the huge lies about "reefer madness" that demonized marijuana. Their previous Bills C-26, C-15 and S-10 would have imposed those kinds of penalties. Those three Bills all came very close to becoming law, before elections or prorogation saved us at the last moment. Criminologists estimate that those kinds of mandatory jail sentences for cannabis "crimes" would result in about 3,000 more Canadians per year being in jail, which would cost the taxpayers billions of dollars per year. The only way to stop that from eventually happening is to defeat the Conservatives, or, at least, to stop the Conservatives from winning a majority!

What kind of voter do you expect your party to appeal to?

People who can not stand the stink of strategic voting, and so, would rather park their protest vote with us.

What policies, if any, does your party support beyond the legalization of marijuana?

None. The ONLY real things that we can offer are ways to make an after-tax profit from protesting, through the Participation Premiums offered via our autonomous electoral district associations. See our website articles for the details: here and here.

What's your party's attitude toward other drugs?

All drugs are tools, and people should be able to enjoy informed consent regarding their individual use of those drugs.

There is a simple difference between drugs that can be seen by asking this question: "What does an overdose do?" Drugs that are fatal in overdose are obviously more dangerous that drugs that have no fatal overdose. In general, only the psychedelic or hallucinogenic drugs are NOT fatal in overdose. Natural plants, such as magic mushrooms, are preferred as the usually better ones. Stronger drugs, such as mescaline and LSD are by far the most interesting of drugs.

What do you see as the least important issue currently distracting attention away from more vital ones?

Canada is controlled by huge lies!!! Our monetary and taxation system is almost inconceivably crazy and corrupt. For good videos to watch regarding more details about the money system topic, see: here.

Another example is that everything Canada did in Afghanistan was based on our being tricked by the false flag attacks on 9/11/2001.

The list of those huge lies is very long, since societies tend to be controlled by the people who are the best at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence. Therefore, we are living in a Bizarro Mirror World Fun House, where almost everything is backwards.

It is because pot is the single best plant on the planet for people, for food, fiber, fun and medicine, that the law lies that "marijuana is almost as bad as murder," and enforcing pot prohibition is the single biggest thing that the police do. These kinds of huge lies are different at every level ... but nevertheless, they are ubiquitous, and control practically everything that governments really do.

What has to have happened by the time the election is over for you to look back on it as a success?

If the Conservatives are prevented from winning a majority, that will be a success!

What are your long-term hopes for your party? Where would you like to see it in five or ten years?

I doubt that we will survive for that long.


You can visit the Marijuana Party of Canada online at www.marijuanaparty.ca.

This is the third in a series of profiles we will be posting over the course of the campaign.  Here are the others we have published so far:

Canadian Action Party, leader Christopher Porter here.

United Party of Canada, leader Brian Jedan, here.

Rhinoceros Party of Canada, leader Francois "Yo" Gound here.
Libertarian Party of Canada, VP of Political Action John Shaw here. 
Pirate Party of Canada, former leader Jake Daynes here. 
Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada, leader Liz White here.
Christian Heritage Party of Canada, Executive Director Vicki Gunn here. 

Communist Party of Canada, campaign coordinator Dave Andrews here. 
Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) leader Anna DiCarlo here.