Anthony Blair wants to get elected in the coming federal election. And Mr. Blair wants to be in the House of Commons so badly he changed his name.
The Toronto freelance computer programmer says people were always comparing his name to Tony Blair, the former British PM.
“I was sick of it,” he says.
Possibly the easiest part to getting elected was the name change. He had to fill out a simple form, pay a small fee, and prove that he had no outstanding debts and no criminal record.
If everything goes according to plan, getting elected will be as easy as changing his name.
Mr. Noneofthe, as the former Mr. Blair now calls himself, hasn’t picked a federal riding yet, and he’s going to wait until the last minute to do so. That’s because he wants his name to be at the bottom of the ballot. You see, the former Anthony Blair is now legally known as Mr. Abov Ernesto Noneofthe, and when voters see his name on their ballot it will read: NONEOFTHE, ABOV E.
Abov, as he prefers to be called, is hoping people’s disgust with most politicians and with politics in general will give him the advantage over his opponents.
“When the voters see ‘none of the above’ on the ballot, they’ll naturally tick the box beside my name,” he explains, hopefully.
The big challenge, Abov says, will be to find a riding where the surnames of all the other candidates are in the first half of the alphabet. Such information isn’t normally available to the public until after all nomination papers have been filed but Mr. Noneofthe thinks he can apply his Internet computer skills to get around that problem. He plans to use the same skills to obtain the required 100 signatures for his nomination papers.
Because of Canada's election rules, he won’t have to live in his chosen riding. In fact his election platform is non-existent and he plans to do no campaigning. His budget is a whopping zero — no signs, no literature, no knocking on doors, no candidates’ debates, nothing.
Of course Mr. Noneofthe will have to post the required $1000 deposit but he’ll see that money refunded after the election.
But if Mr. Noneofthe does get elected, will he move to his riding and actually take his seat in the Commons? Or will he immediately resign as a matter of principle? After all, if he wins it will be because the voters believed they were choosing none of the candidates.
He answers the question with a sly grin: “Just watch me.”
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