Blake Hamilton Rhinoceros Party Candidate in Kingston-Lanark-Frontenac

Jeff Green | Sep 01, 2021

Blake Hamilton joined the Rhinoceros Party 3 years ago.

“I was fed up with all the big parties. They had all become corrupt, dysfunctional and inept. And people are tired of strategic voting. The Rhinos are a great way to give enough people an option to make a statement against a broken system.

“This election has been pretty emotional, people have been taking it, and themselves, very seriously. We also like to bring a bit of satirical humour to people during the elections.”

The Rhinoceros Party was founded in 1963, and while most of its membership is based in Quebec, there are a number of Rhino candidates in Ontario this time around.

The main promise that the party makes is not to adhere to any of its promises, which might be a good thing, considering one of the promises is to auction off Senate seats to raise funds and another is to deal with the looming threat of global warming over the next 20 years, by accelerating it to ten years.

Although he lives, and works in Ottawa, Blake Hamilton is originally from Carleton Place and is now connected to the Sharbot Lake Community as well.

Although there are ridings available in Ottawa for Rhino candidates, he chose Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston for two reasons. This first has to do with his historic connection to the riding, which has made it easier to gather signatures, and the second is that it is a safe Conservative riding, so he feels there is no risk for voters supporting him.

“This is a true blue riding. I am under no illusions that Scott Reid will be defeated in this election. There is no reason for people to vote strategically at all,” he said

Noting that an NDP candidate in Toronto would like to change the name of a Toronto riding to pay homage the late NDP leader Jack Layton, Blake Hamilton has proposed changing the name of the Lanark Frontenac – Kingston riding to Lanark-Frontenac-Reid to mark Scott Reid’s 20 years as an MP.

The serious point behind the satire, for Hamilton, is a critique of the electoral system which has led to the same party representing the riding for decades.

“The two main parties will never support changing the system to make everyone’s vote count,” he said.

While the NDP and the Green Party both support electoral reform, he said that “from a political perspective, I don’t completely agree with their platforms. The main issue for the Rhinos is that the system is so broken that the only thing left to do is to be the joker. It’s a way to make a statement.”

Blake Hamilton works for a tech company in Ottawa. Because of COVID, he does not anticipate doing much door to door campaigning, and will be using social media, Facebook and Twitter, as his main platforms.

He uses BlakeTheRhino as his handle on both platforms.