You’ve probably noticed quite a few posters around campus promoting Waterloo’s Rhino Party in the FedS election. You may have also noticed that there were fewer of these posters up toward the end of the campaign period after a Waterloo student was caught removing campaign materials to express “disdain for the elections process so far, including the debates and campaign material seen around campus”, according to the Chief Electoral Officer, Marco Yim.
The Rhino Party has inspired a fair bit of controversy on campus since the campaign period began. Most students consider the party to be a joke as their Presidential Candidate promises that “if elected, we promise to keep none of our promises”. However, it is probably for the better that they don’t plan to keep their promises as the party’s Presidential Candidate, Ian Charlesworth promises “to have FedS finance and produce a Jersey Shore spinoff called Columbia Lake Shore” and to “hire contractors to, using the theories pioneered by M. C. Escher, Esquire, modify the road such that it is constantly a gentle downward slope in the anti-clockwise direction”.
The Elections Committee released a statement, reminding students that it is inappropriate to remove election material, regardless of how you may feel about a candidate or their platform. The official statement released by the Election Committee stated “that all candidates are allowed to campaign as they see fit, within Federation of Students Election Procedures”. The release further read that “We strongly believe in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the protection it gives to free speech and freedom of expression. However, we can not condone interfering in a candidate’s campaigns and campaign materials”.
Members of the student body have expressed frustrations with the Rhino Party using student fees to finance a joke campaign, and wasting time during the debate by providing irrelevant answers that were intended to be humorous. In contrast, some students praised the Rhino Party, for making commentary on the shortcomings of FedS and student leaders in general. Additionally, some credit the Rhino party with creating election publicity, and getting a lot more people to talk about the election and the role of FedS, relative to past years.
Waterloo’s Rhino Party is based on the Rhinoceros Party of Canada, a federal party that was launched in 1963, only to be dissolved in 1993 following the introduction of a new rule requiring parties to have candidates running in a minimum of 50 ridings, with a price tag of $100 per riding. The Rhinoceros Party of Canada made novel campaign promises such as “Repealing the law of gravity”, “Instituting English, French and illiteracy as Canada’s three official languages” and “Counting the Thousand Islands to see if the Americans have stolen any”.
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