Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister, With No Interest in Electoral Politics

Once in a while, I come across a blog post that is so on-point I cannot add much more than a link to it. With CBC broadcasting this year’s edition of Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister tonight, I highly recommend this post on the contest’s boneheaded entry requirement.

The rule is as follows: “It is a condition of entry and participation in the Competition that the Competitor has not been elected to any political office, either federally, provincially or municipally (including, without limitation, as a school board trustee), nor shall the person have run for a nomination for any political party for Parliament or the legislature in any province.”

It is perhaps understandable that CBC is trying to create a competition for prospective politicians rather than for young MPs and MLAs. But banning anyone who has ever been, or attempted to be, a candidate just arbitrarily excludes the prospective politicians who have most clearly demonstrated the interests and ambitions that the competition claims to seek.