2025 was a busy year in terms of elections across the country of Canada. The most notable being the snap federal election in April of 2025, but there were also provincial elections in Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon and Nunavut.
With these federal elections we see these independent fringe parties on the ballot. These parties include the Peoples party of Canada, the Canadian Future Party among others. These parties don’t identify with the major political parties such as the Liberals, the Conservatives or the New Democrat Party and want to have their message heard as they want to be different from the major parties.
Bruce Lamb is one of these individuals, he is a representative for the Canadian Future Party for London Centre and gave his insight about his decision to join the party.
Bruce Lamb (source; The Canadian Future Party)
“I had become disillusioned with both of the major parties, and as opposed to just saying, well, I’m just not going to vote for either of them. My decision, along with some others, was that we need to fix the problem, not just complain about the problem or do nothing about the problem. And so when I caught wind of the Canadian Future Party.”
Lamb also goes on to mention the political views that drove him away from Canada’s two biggest parties in the Liberals and the Conservatives.
“I’ve been a Conservative member, but had seen internally in the Conservative party that the religious right was starting to take over a lot of the discussion. And that’s just not where I am. The anti-abortion movement is very big in the Conservative party. But on the other hand, the Liberals fiscally were going in the wrong direction without question. So we needed to find that centrist part of the policy spectrum again.”
Lamb mentions the future for the Canadian Future Party and what he wants everyone to know.
“I think it’s good. Again, we may never elect an actual sitting MP, but we can bring the conversation to the center. And I think that’s what we want to do.”
To get an expert point of view, XFM sat down with Matt Farrell, a Political Science Professor at Fanshawe College. Farrell talks about how these smaller parties can have success.
“Minor parties like that, or fringe parties, sometimes they’re called boutique parties, however you want to characterize them, don’t do that well. The way to get success, electoral success as a party, is to already be in the legislature.”
Matt Farrell (source; Research Gate)
Farrell outlines the strategy for these smaller parties and how they can break into parliament
“If you are in the legislature and you break off, a few members of parliament break off to form their own party, then they’re already ahead of the game. They’re already in the legislature, and so then they can organize their voters and they can look to expand their footprint.”
Despite Canada mostly being a two horse race between the Liberals and the Conservatives, Farrell says there are opportunities for other parties to step up.
“We’re definitely unique because most countries with majoritarian systems, like ours, winner-take-all systems, trend to two parties, and we don’t do that. We still hang around with this, these Labour movement parties like the NDP, the Sovereigntist Party in Quebec, the Bloc Québécois. So even though that federally, it’s still two parties that dominate, there is potential for third parties to do well.”
Although the political scene seems more and more crowded by the day, not every party is established with the House of Commons in mind. Instead, they act as platforms for Canadian voices who fall outside of the status quo.
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