No hope in hell

Three candidates offer themselves for political sacrifice

Elections may be exercises in the bald pursuit of power, but for many individual candidates, power's got nothing to do with it. For those who know they can't win, campaigns become a test of personal resolve: they symbolize the depth of one's convictions and the willingness to make those convictions public in the face of potential derision from a community. But the vector runs both ways: their candidacies also test their community's tolerance for different political views.

Do politics matter anymore? The Mirror sent three writers out to follow three local lost causes on the campaign trail in order to find out.

Communism in a time of ideological drought

by JACQUIE CHARLTON

When a comrade donated his collection of Marxist books to the Communist Party (CP) offices on Parc, Mathieu Ravignat, the CP candidate in Laurier/Ste-Marie almost wept. The CP's own collection had been seized by Ottawa when the party failed to present 50 candidates in the 1993 federal election. But that wasn't the only thing that made him want to cry. It was also for the passing of an era when there was a real left and a real right, and it was felt that voting changed things.

He showed me a pamphlet published by Progress Books in 1936, redolent of old-book smell, called What We Propose. It is dedicated, among others, "to the memory of N.J. Schaack, a trekker, who lost his life as a result of the bestial attack upon a peaceful meeting on Dominion Day, 1935 in Regina." A poem inside reads:

Russia, salute! Not to your lands,

But to your deathless working class

Who broke the spears of all the tsars

Upon their breasts, that we might pass.

"We don't have enough money to publish anymore," sighs Ravignat, handing me another pamphlet, and we silently marvel at a time when politics mattered.

The CP's office is a garden of politics. There are the marvellous, unreadable books, nine artists' renditions of Lenin, revolutionary posters of shouting workers and an empty bottle of Russian vodka in the recycling bin. We listen to music--Billy Bragg's Tender Comrade and a multi-artist tribute to Che Guevara--as he tells me about the campaign and how he came to be a communist.

Ravignat is 24, a once-homeless political philosophy student who, at 19, planned to be a monk. He's eating better these days because the owner of Milos restaurant downstairs, an ex-communist, is feeding him free for the entire campaign. ("Sometimes these ex-communists make a lot of money and get guilty," Ravignat says.) He's solidly versed in communist theory, but interesting and very likeable. Embarrassingly, he looks like Chris O'Donnell. Imagine: Chris O'Donnell discussing American imperialism and the Albania-China split.

We go out door-to-door campaigning in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district. We meet an older man with statues of the Virgin Mary in his living room who tells us Jesus was the first Marxist, and then begins something approaching a tirade on immigrants, the Holocaust and the ills of foreign aid. We say a friendly goodbye. Ravignat tells me later he felt we'd got out of there just in time.

Ravignat talks to a youth sitting on his front stoop. The young man doesn't have a job or a phone. Ravignat tell him that the CP's plan for a 32-hour workweek will boost job creation and, in turn, consumption; humbly, the young chômeur replies, "I'm not a consumer. I'm a human being." He says he's found a way to live on welfare and is content with it. "When I want to eat, I buy potatoes and onions. I don't buy such-and-such a frozen brand-name dinner." His anarchism is so natural, so Montreal, that we are all at a bit of a loss. What's a workers' party to do, after all, when there is no work?

A sovereignist in partition territory

by PHILIP PREVILLE

If in this election, by some bizarre political fluke, Jean Chrétien's Liberals should suffer the same fate as Kim Campbell's Tories and be reduced to two seats in the Commons, one of those seats would come from the riding of Mont-Royal. This constituency, which encompasses the municipalities of Mont-Royal, Hampstead and Côte-St-Luc, is the most befuddlingly Liberal riding in the entire country. Formerly Pierre Trudeau's riding, Mont-Royal has been held since his retirement by Sheila Finestone; in the 1993 election, Finestone was elected with 83 per cent of the vote.

Activist Howard Galganov is running here in order to send the Liberals a message, one which will likely have all the magnitude of a falling pin. But while Galganov may entertain delusions of grandeur, one person does not: Bloc Québécois candidate Jacques Thibodeau.

The 68-year-old Thibodeau, a longtime PQ and Bloc supporter, basically had to be tricked into running. "I got a call one day from Gilles Duceppe," explains Thibodeau. "He said, 'Did they tell you you're our candidate there?' I said, 'Someone called and told me to get my picture taken, but they didn't say what for.' Duceppe said, 'Well, now you know.'"

For Thibodeau and his wife Constance, his campaign manager and lone volunteer, just getting the 100 signatures required for his nomination was an epic struggle; many people, even neighbours, refused to sign. "There was one man in particular, un vrai Johnny Goodfellow--you know, the kind who always smiles and shakes your hand like he's just so happy to meet you all the time--and even he wouldn't sign. That surprised me, because he's a lawyer. He knows his signature doesn't mean anything, and I never expected him to vote for me."

With that kind of atmosphere, getting those signatures is pretty much all the campaigning Thibodeau intends to do. No signs, no door-to-door; he will simply accept invitations to speak and to debate the other candidates. "It's a matter of respect. The Bloc has to field candidates in all 75 ridings in Quebec," he says, explaining that his presence is a symbol of the Bloc's openness to all Quebecers.

Thibodeau says he takes that symbolism to heart, but his words make you wonder just how deeply he understands the concept of openness. "I don't have a problem extending a welcoming hand to Jews," he says earnestly. "We'll see how many votes Galganov gets; that will tell us the pulse of the Jews." The words "the Jews" are mentioned dozens of times in our two-hour conversation, including when he said "I have no complex with respect to Jews." To his credit, he says that he supports Israel's right to exist, that French fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen makes him vomit and that he's ashamed of Canada's record on the prosecution of Nazi war criminals.

Not bad for someone with no complex, but given his preoccupation with Jewry, his stay-at-home campaign is probably the best strategy he could have chosen.

Gay-positive social democracy

by MATTHEW HAYS

It might seem odd to find an openly gay NDP candidate lamenting the lack of Reform presence in their riding, but Chris Carter is doing just that. "I am dying to debate one of their candidates. But they're not fielding one in this riding."

Carter, age 24 and one of 11 openly gay NDP candidates nationwide, is running in Westmount/Ville-Marie. Tonight he's off on part of his carefully orchestrated canvassing tour. Unfortunately, this is a record-breakingly cold May night. Carter is underdressed in a suit, but says he doesn't mind. "This is a great way to talk to people directly about the issues," he says.

Carter's sexuality doesn't come up much. "It's in my bio, but no one seems to notice or ask me about it." Remarkably, Carter says the homophobic response began early in his campaign from within the NDP. When Carter won the party's nomination on the first ballot last March, one of his opponents asked him if he believed in democracy. "When I replied yes, he said 'Then why did you stack the room with all your gay and lesbian friends?' I was pretty amazed at that." Carter says his former contender has since left the party.

Despite the NDP's static position in the national polls, Carter says he thinks Alexa McDonough is doing a fine job. "I'll be honest: I wanted Svend Robinson to lead the party. I guess since my expectations were so low with Alexa, I've been very impressed by her performance. Her French has improved and she's campaigning quite vigorously."

Carter believes the party will regain several seats, reclaiming the all-important official party status it lost in the last election. But he adds that the party would have had a better shot in Quebec if Robinson were leading the party. "Svend has a national profile. He has good connections with Quebec's labour movement."

Carter acknowledges that his chances at winning are next to nil, with Liberal heavyweight Lucienne Robillard as the odds-on favourite. "I'm doing this to bring important issues that aren't getting discussed to the debate. I'm hoping for 20 per cent of the vote. Considering our resources I think we're managing to achieve something."

By evening's end, Carter and his entourage are getting quite uncomfortable with the cold. "Let's hope that election day is like this," says one of his campaigners. "The NDP does better on an election day with bad weather because NDP voters tend to be more diehard, more committed than other voters. They turn out despite the conditions. So let's hope for rain on June 2!"

"Actually," Carter interjects, "let's hope for a snowstorm."