Anti-tax upstart Manitoba Party hopes to get official party status by end of the month

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This article was published 20/01/2016 (3016 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Organizers of the anti-tax, anti-government Manitoba Party say they hope to apply for official party status by the end of the month and run at least 15 candidates in April’s general election.

Those candidates will likely include interim party leader Taz Stuart, who is running in Fort Whyte. The recognizable entomologist parted ways with the city in 2013 and ran unsuccessfully for city council in River Heights-Fort Garry in 2014. He originally planned to run for the Progressive Conservatives in this spring’s provincial election.

Instead, he is joining the Manitoba Party’s motley band that includes Joe Chan, the former assistant to former councillor Harvey Smith who has been kicked out of both the NDP and the Liberals and repeatedly accused of dirty tricks and campaign violations in past races. Chan plans to run in the Logan riding.

The party also includes political gadfly Bob Axworthy, a former Liberal who worked briefly on Robert-Falcon Ouellette’s mayoral campaign before being asked to leave. And, it includes Kim Edwards, a intense critic of the child welfare system who spent much of the summer of 2013 camped out on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature on hunger strike. She will run in Point Douglas.

Party president and candidate Gary Marshall, who is running in Kildonan, says the new party hopes to convince voters the province’s too-high taxes and over-regulation are the cause of what it believes is stagnant growth.

The party’s platform promises a flat income tax of 10 per cent, a PST reduction from eight per cent to four, few regulations and the end of red light and photo radar cameras, which Marshall calls revenue-generators with no bearing on public safety.

“That represents the worst the government can be toward the citizens,” said Marshall. “They’re devious and nefarious instruments used against the public.”

Marshall also says the party aims to fix roads instead of spending money on rapid transit or other wasteful projects such as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. And, the party hopes to crack down on welfare use.

“The Manitoba Party embraces one grand principle – to encourage those that will produce, the industrious, clever, skilled, knowledgeable, and innovative among us, and to discourage the monstrous dependencies having arisen within and without government, the idle and those who produce so little, not even their daily bread, whilst collecting unjustified payment,” says the party’s website. “Whatever laws, regulations, or decrees impede this principle this party shall revoke and abolish. Whatever laws and regulations favour and advance this principle this party shall retain and fortify.”

To win official party status, the Manitoba Party must submit 2,500 signatures to Elections Manitoba along with a recent set of audited statements before the writ is dropped. Or, it can run five candidates during the writ period. Marshall said the party has already collected hundreds of signatures and hopes to submit the rest before month’s end for Elections Manitoba to vet.

Along with Marshall, the party was co-founded by John Sneisen. On the party’s website, Sneisen says he is a leadership council member of Freedom Force International, a U.S.-based anti-government group that opposes “collectivists advocate controlled elections, controlled media, controlled education, the elimination of free speech, disarmament of the population, fiat money, a cartelized health-care system, military imperialism, and global government.”