Six candidates have so far withdrawn from Canada’s elections for past misbehaviors, believed as of Tuesday to be the most to quit a Canadian race in mid-heat.
Several others also faced flak or ridicule for missteps early on in the campaign for an Oct. 14 vote, but remained steadfast.
As a result, all three of Canada’s major political parties touched by these controversies were knocked for failing to vet candidates, yet their standings in the polls have remained steady.
“The number of gaffes is really surprising,” said Catherine Cote, a politics professor at University of Ottawa. “But I’m not sure it will have a big impact on the election results.”
Canadians expect a lot from politicians, but generally accept them for all their blemishes, within reason, she said.
“Voters may say to themselves a party lacked judgment in selecting a [bad] candidate,” but they may also be forgiven considering the more than 1,000 candidates in 308 electoral districts vying for election, she said.
Inversely, a leader could actually gain support for himself and his party by firing a bum candidate in a campaign that has been fought on leadership qualities, not policies, she said.
The dropouts most often cited family or job concerns for their sudden exit, but their resignations were also mired in controversies ranging from criminal records to indecent rants.
Two Conservative candidates were the latest to drop out before a Monday deadline for filing nomination papers.
One in easternmost Halifax left unexpectedly amid revelations of two criminal convictions for uttering threats last year and breach of her probation a year later.
A Conservative candidate in Toronto also quit after he was discovered urging gays and women in a blog to carry concealed handguns rather than be “victims” and “rely on the government.”
In westernmost Canada, the leftist New Democratic Party distanced itself from two candidates after a video emerged of them smoking marijuana and in one scene trying to light some 50 joints at once.
Their resignations angered advocates of decriminalizing marijuana.
“I’m furious,” Marge Groenendyk told the Vancouver Sun at a recent rally for New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton.
She accused Layton of courting, then abandoning Canada’s estimated 1 million pot smokers, for political gain.
In Quebec, the Liberals replaced two candidates for ranting about aboriginals.
In one case, a former radio host opined that Canadian soldiers should have shot Mohawk protestors who set up a blockade in 1990 over disputed lands in Oka, Quebec. In another, the candidate proposed exiling natives.
Almost each day of the first weeks of the campaign saw a public apology for a candidate’s bad behavior.
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