Rhinoceros Party

This article is about the current Canadian federal political party. For its predecessor, see Rhinoceros Party of Canada (1963–1993).

Rhinoceros Party Parti Rhinocéros
Active federal party
Leader	Sébastien Corriveau
Founded	May 21, 2006
Headquarters	2–4534, de l’Hôtel-de-Ville Avenue Montréal, Quebec H2T 2B1
Ideology	Satirical party
Colours	Red, white
Seats in the House of Commons	0 / 338
Website
www.eatgoogle.com
Politics of Canada Political parties Elections

The Rhinoceros Party (French: Parti Rhinocéros) is a Canadian federal-level satirical political party, referred to in English Canada as the Second Rhinoceros Party. It was known as neorhino.ca until 2010, when the party changed names and registered a new party logo. It was created in Montreal on May 21, 2006, and recognized by Elections Canada as being eligible for registration on August 16, 2007, and an official political party on August 23, 2007. It is the successor to the Rhinoceros Party of Canada.

The party was founded by François "Yo" Gourd, who was involved with the original incarnation of the First Rhinoceros Party. He stated he named the new party (then under the name "neorhino") for the Rhinoceros Party and for Neo, the Matrix character. The party is led by Sébastien Corriveau.

It promises, like its predecessor, not to keep any of its promises if elected.

Origins

Main article: Rhinoceros Party of Canada (1963–1993)

The Rhino movement was started in 1963 by Jacques Ferron, "Éminence de la Grande Corne du parti Rhinocéros". In the 1970s, a group of artists joined the party and created a comedic political platform to contest the federal election. Ferron (1979), poet Gaston Miron (1972) and singer Michel Rivard (1980) ran against then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in his Montreal seat.

The party claimed to be the spiritual descendants of Cacareco, a Brazilian rhinoceros who was elected member of São Paulo's city council in 1958, and listed Cornelius the First, a rhinoceros from the Granby Zoo, east of Montreal, as its leader. Cornelius is still featured in the party's official logo. It declared that the rhinoceros was an appropriate symbol for a political party since politicians, by nature, are "thick-skinned, slow-moving, dim-witted, can move fast as hell when in danger, and have large, hairy horns growing out of the middle of their faces."

The party abstained from the 1993 federal election as they questioned the constitutionality of new rules that required the party to run candidates in at least 50 ridings at a cost of $1,000 per candidature. On September 23, 1993, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, refused to accept the party's abstention and ordered the removal of the Rhinoceros Party from the Registry of Canadian Political Parties, effectively eliminating them from the Canadian political system. Kingsley also directed the party's official agent, Charlie (le Concierge) McKenzie, to liquidate all party assets and return any revenues to the Receiver General of Canada. On instructions from the party, McKenzie refused. After two years of threatening letters, Ottawa refused to prosecute McKenzie. Within the following year, the Rhinoceros Party of Canada was dissolved.

Platform

If elected, the Rhinoceros Party of Canada has promised to:

• Repeal the law of gravity
• Promote higher education by building taller schools
• Count the Thousand Islands to make sure the Americans didn’t steal any
• Reform the retail lottery scheme by replacing cash prizes with Senate appointments
• Seat the Queen of Canada in Buckingham, Quebec.
• Nationalize Tim Hortons
• Move the national capital to Kapuskasing, Ontario
• Privatize the Canadian Army
• Make gluten free items illegal
• Legalize all drugs
• Ban Ikea and Android phones
• Allow every Canadian to vote in the Hong Kong Chief Executive election, 2017
• A rhinoceros for every Canadian Citizen

Neorhino.ca

On August 7, 2007, Brian Salmi, then-president of the Rhinoceros Party, announced a $50-million lawsuit contesting an election reform law that had stripped his party of its registered status in 1993.

Legally changing his name to Satan, he had planned to run under the Rhino banner in the September 2007 by-election. However, a previous law in 1993 stating registered parties must run candidates in at least 50 ridings, at a cost of $1,000 per riding, to keep their status. In protest of the new law, the party planned to abstain from the election. Canada's then-Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, rejected the abstention and ordered the party removed from the Registry of Canadian Political Parties. The lawsuit was filed as a result of the removal from the National Party Registry by Mr. Kingsley. Since Mr. Salmi had legally changed his name, the lawsuit was filed as Satan vs. Her Majesty The Queen. The lawsuit was dropped after the ruling of the Chief Electoral Officer was reversed in a new law passed in 2004 that said a party only had to run one candidate in a federal election or federal by-election to be considered registered.

Electoral record

To date, candidates of Neorhino.ca and the Rhinoceros Party have not recorded any electoral victories. Before the Neorhino.ca candidates that stood for the ridings of Outremont and Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot in the 2007 federal by-elections, Neorhino.ca and the Rhinoceros Party before them had not fielded a candidate since Bryan Gold's failed bid to win a 1990 by-election in the New Brunswick electoral district of Beauséjour.

Neorhino.ca candidates did not win any seats in the 2007 by-elections, the 2008 federal election, or the 2011 federal election.

2007/2008 by-elections

Candidate	Votes	%	Placement	District	Date
François Gourd	145	0.6	6/12	Outremont	September 17, 2007
Christian Willie Vanasse	384	1.2	6/7	Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot	September 17, 2007
John Turner	111	0.4	5/6	Vancouver Quadra	March 17, 2008

2008 federal election

Election	# of candidates	# of votes	% of popular vote	% in ridings run	# of seats
2008	7	2,263	0.02%	0.67%	0

2009 by-elections

Candidate	Votes	%	Placement	District	Date
Gabrielle Anctil	129	0.7	6/8	Hochelaga	November 9, 2009

Rhinoceros Party

The party changed from neorhino.ca to its new formal name of the Rhinoceros Party in mid-2010. It also registered a new logo with Elections Canada.

Election	# of candidates	# of votes	% of popular vote	% in ridings run	# of seats
2011	14	3,800	0.026%	0.57%	0

2011 candidates

Riding	Province	Candidate	Occupation	Notes	Votes	%	Placement
Ahuntsic	Quebec	Jean-Olivier Berthiaume			299	0.64	6/6
Berthier—Maskinongé	Quebec	Martin Jubinville			373	0.66	6/6
Chicoutimi—Le Fjord	Quebec	Marielle Couture			340	0.67	6/6
Hochelaga	Quebec	Hugo Samson Veillette			246	0.53	6/8
Honoré-Mercier	Quebec	Valery Chevrefils-Latulippe			181	0.38	6/7
LaSalle—Émard	Quebec	Guillaume Berger-Richard			208	0.50	7/7
Laurier—Sainte-Marie	Quebec	François Yo Gourd			398	0.79	6/9
Outremont	Quebec	Tommy Gaudet			160	0.41	6/7
Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie	Quebec	Jean-Patrick Berthiaume	Politician	Born in Saint-Jérôme, Berthiaume contested Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie in the 2008 federal election as a neorhino.ca candidate. He was the leader of the Rhinoceros Party's Laboratoire des Sciences de la Démocratie (LSD) in 2011.	417	0.77	6/7
Sherbrooke	Quebec	Crédible Berlingot Landry			233	0.45	6/6
Trois-Rivières	Quebec	Francis Arsenault			256	0.51	7/7
Westmount—Ville-Marie	Quebec	Victoria Haliburton			140	0.34	6/7
Peace River	Alberta	Donovan Eckstrom			345	0.72	6/6
Cariboo—Prince George	British Columbia	Jordan Turner			204	0.47	7/7

2015 candidates

Riding	Province	Candidate Name	Occupation	Notes	Votes	%	Placement
Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou	Quebec	Mario Gagnon			258	0.75	6/6
Abitibi-Témiscamingue	Quebec	Pascal Le Fou Gélinas			425	0.85	6/6
Ahuntsic-Cartierville	Quebec	Catherine Gascon-David			285	0.51	6/6
Avignon-La Mitis-Matane-Matapédia	Quebec	Éric Normand			175	0.48	7/7
Compton-Stanstead	Quebec	Kevin Côté			315	0.56	6/6
Edmonton Centre	Alberta	Steven Stauffer			257	0.48	5/6
Edmonton Griesbach	Alberta	Bun Bun Thompson	cat		144	0.30	7/8
Edmonton Strathcona	Alberta	Donovan Eckstrom			133	0.24	7/10
Elgin-Middlesex-London	Ontario	Lou Bernardi			185	0.32	6/6
Gaspesie-Iles-de-la-Madeleine	Quebec	Max Boudreau			300	0.76	6/6
Hochelaga	Quebec	Nicolas Lemay			411	0.79	6/8
Jonquière	Quebec	Marielle Couture			382	0.79	6/6
Kings-Hants	Nova Scotia	Megan Brown-Hodges			184	0.39	5/7
La Pointe-de-l'Île	Quebec	Ben 97 Benoit			358	0.65	6/8
Lethbridge	Alberta	Solly Krygier-Paine			209	0.37	6/6
Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne	Quebec	Matthew Iakov Liberman			325	0.63	6/7
Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup	Quebec	Bien Gras Gagné			287	0.58	6/6
Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan	Saskatchewan	Robert Thomas			208	0.50	5/5
Ottawa Centre	Ontario	Conrad Lukawski			167	0.22	6/8
Papineau	Quebec	Tommy Gaudet			323	0.64	7/10
Richmond—Arthabaska	Quebec	Antoine Dubois			384	0.66	6/6
Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques	Quebec	Sébastien CôRhino Côrriveau		Leader of party	273	0.61	6/6
Rivière du Nord	Quebec	Fobozof A. Côté			261	0.46	6/6
Rosemont--La Petite-Patrie	Quebec	Laurent Aglat			495	0.85	6/8
Saskatoon—University	Saskatchewan	Eric Matthew Schalm			93	0.21	5/5
Sherbrooke	Quebec	Hubert Richard			265	0.46	7/7
Ville-Marie-Le Sud-Ouest-Ile-des-Soeurs	Quebec	Daniel Wolfe			161	0.32	6/7

See also

• List of political parties in Canada
• List of frivolous political parties
• Non-human electoral candidates

External links

• Official website