Back from extinction

>>The NeoRhino Party inherits the oddball
status of its predecessor, but adds
a (semi) serious side

THE CANDIDATE: (Yo) Gourd

A lot has changed on Canada’s political landscape since 1993. That was the year the Rhinoceros Party, the 30-year-old oddball party that had promised, among other things, to repeal the law of gravity (as well as all other laws in order to create a crime-free society), pave Manitoba and rename the country to Nantucket, officially folded, forced into penury by a change to the Elections Act that required individual candidates to deposit $1,000 each for the privilege of running a campaign. Unable to meet the financial constraints, the Rhinos were priced into extinction.

This year, however, something remarkable has happened. The Rhinos came back. This week, François (Yo) Gourd deposited his papers at an Elections Canada office to announce his candidacy in Outremont’s Sept. 17 federal by-election. He’s running under the banner of the year-old NeoRhino Party, and promises change. The jokey attitude remains, but the party has also adopted a decidedly left-ish, mildly revolutionary, bent. The “Neo” part, says Gourd, was inspired by the Keanu Reeves character in The Matrix movies. “He was a hero who ran through the system,” he says.

Poetry, love and tenderness

“There is a feeling of great deception and disappointment” regarding the current political system, says Gourd. “We want to add some colour to the political process, so we’re asking the other leaders to donate $1,000 each to support our candidacy.”

When asked about his policies, Gourd offers only a few concrete proposals, such as transforming Canada’s military into “an army of creativity,” and putting the military budget towards education and culture. “We should be a neutral country. Instead of sending soldiers off to fight wars, we should send the ministers.” He says he wants to bring the party’s “poetry, love and tenderness” to the country, and the world.

He also promises to devolve the federal government by handing over all powers from Ottawa to the provinces. “The federal government is always the source of division,” he says. “If you look at what Trudeau did, he pursued a policy of divide and conquer. There is so much wasted money—just look at the sponsorship scandal. There have been huge errors in judgment imposed on us by the central government.”

But he does say the party is on the left of the political spectrum, in virtue of being against things that are traditionally considered attractive to the right. The NeoRhinos are anti-war, anti-Big Oil, pro-environment and pro-nationalizing natural resources.

Gourd, who describes himself as a “career politician” despite never having won anything, says jokes still matter. The party itself is “a melting pot of weird people,” he says. The idea is to provide a forum for discussion, which has been sorely lacking in politics of late.

“Politics is supposed to be about the exchange of ideas,” he says. “But now, the ideas are imposed on us.” The big difference between today’s political climate and that of the ’60s, he says, is voter cynicism.

“In the ’60s, people believed they could still change the world,” he says. “Today, there’s a sense of total political abandon. We want to give the people a sense of empowerment.”

While the Rhino Party’s glory years of the late 1970s and ’80s are behind it—in 1980, Sonia “Chatouille” Côté came second in Montreal’s Laurier riding, behind the Liberal candidate, and the Rhinos attracted just over one per cent of the popular vote (110,000 votes) across the country—Gourd says he is not looking to re-create the past. When a reporter starts going over some past Rhino promises, he interrupts and says, “Look, the past is the past. The Rhinoceros party ended in 1993. There are some good old jokes” still to be mined, but he does not want to dwell on them.

THE INSPIRATION: Crusher

Two rhinos, one riding

Comedy and the sense of fun are still big parts of the Rhinoceros ethos (the current mascot is the Granby Zoo’s Crusher, pictured here), but even the current incarnation has borne its share of farce. Unbeknownst to each other, Gourd and transplanted West Coaster and former Rhino party member Brian Salmi each began preparations to run in Outremont for next month’s by-election. Following a strategy meeting “at a bar on St-Denis” two weeks ago, Salmi decided to bow out and let Gourd run. He will, says Gourd, stay on as his English spokesperson/aide.

In the meantime, the NeoRhinos are trying to raise funds (their current budget, says Gourd, is “zero. We don’t have a budget.”). They’ll be throwing a bash on Thursday, Sept. 6 at Kola Note (5240 Parc, $10 voluntary contribution); and on Thursday, Aug. 23, they’ll be hosting a “political/artistic performance” at the corner of Parc and Mont-Royal W., where they’ll be painting over old Liberal campaign posters the NeoRhinos will use as campaign tools. For more info, see www.neorhino.ca.