Kicker: Consensus candidate

NICK EICHER, HOST: I’ve seen some crowded elections in my day, but here’s one for the history books. Toronto voters recently had to choose from among 84 candidates. And in a first, this has got to come as zero surprise to you: one candidate received precisely zero votes.

HAMEL: Everyone agrees not to vote for me.

And with a name like Félix-Antoine Hamel, you’d expect someone to choose him, but no one did. He didn’t even vote for himself because he couldn’t. He’s from Montréal, and this was a Toronto election.

Reasonable question, why was he running?

Turns out he was one of 77 recruited by the Longest Ballot Committee which pulled the stunt to call attention to what they say is a weakness in the system.

So Félix-Antoine Hamel shouldn’t take it personally, and in this interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Company he didn’t. He spun it better than any seasoned politician.

HAMEL: When I saw the result. I was like, well, I am the true unity candidate.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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