Longest ballot protest group returns, targets byelection in Terrebonne

OTTAWA — The group that recruited hundreds of people to run against the Conservative leader in last spring’s election and last summer’s byelection says it’s now targeting the hotly contested vote in Terrebonne next month.

Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste won the Quebec seat in the April 2025 election, beating the Bloc Québécois Nathalie Sinclair Desgagné by a single vote.

It was later revealed that Elections Canada had sent mail-in ballots to some electors with an incorrect return address, meaning they were never counted.

The Supreme Court of Canada invalidated the election result after a legal challenge, and the seat was declared vacant.

Prime Minister Mark Carney called a byelection for April 13, the same day voters will go to the polls in the Toronto ridings of University—Rosedale and Scarborough Southwest.

Auguste and Sinclair Desgagné, along with Conservative candidate Adrienne Charles, are running in a rematch that could decide whether the Carney Liberals win a majority government.

If the Liberals win all three byelections, they will have 173 seats in the House of Commons — one more than they need to form a majority.

The Longest Ballot Committee said it’s signing up candidates to run in Terrebonne, though a spokesperson did not answer questions about how many candidates have put their names forward.

Prospective candidates have until March 23 to submit their paperwork.

“Long ballots are a lot of fun, but most importantly they create a platform which we use to point out that politicians shouldn’t be in charge of their own election rules because it’s an obvious inappropriate conflict of interest,” said spokesperson Tomas Szuchewycz in an email.

Szuchewycz said an independent, non-partisan body should decide election rules.

In the past, the Longest Ballot Committee has said it was pushing for reform of the first-past-the-post system.

The group has signed up dozens of candidates in a number of byelections and general election races dating back to 2022.

Its efforts forced Elections Canada to print ballots that were roughly a metre long in Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s long-held riding of Carleton in last April’s election. Liberal MP Bruce Fanjoy won that race.

When Poilievre ran in a byelection in Battle River—Crowfoot last August, the Longest Ballot Committee signed up a record number of candidates. Elections Canada opted for a modified write-in ballot and printed lists of the 214 candidates at each polling place.

Stéphane Perreault, Canada’s chief electoral officer, has called on the government to change the candidate nomination rules to make such protests more difficult.

Perreault told a House of Commons committee last October that many of the nomination papers for candidates taking part in longest ballot protests were signed by the same people.

Candidates need to collect signatures from 100 electors to be eligible to run.

“This indicates that voters who sign the nomination papers are not supporting the nomination of any particular candidate but rather the idea of having as many candidates as possible,” Perrault said.

He also suggested that the number of candidates an official agent can support in a given riding should be limited.

Szuchewycz was listed as the official agent for nearly all the people who signed up to run against Poilievre in August. He told the same House committee in October that the group also had the same people sign nomination papers for numerous candidates.

Perrault said the long ballots present accessibility issues for seniors and people with disabilities, pose logistical challenges for poll workers, and make it harder for people to participate in the democratic process.

The Conservatives have called the longest ballot initiative a “scam” and have called for changes similar to what Perrault has proposed.

Alberta’s provincial government has made changes to its laws to ban people from signing more than one candidate’s nomination paper.

Szuchewycz told MPs in October that the group was “successful beyond anything I honestly could have ever imagined” in getting the attention of media and the public.

The procedure and House affairs committee’s report on the longest ballot initiative has not yet been made public.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 17, 2026.

Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press