Looking at election signs in the downtown Westmount – Ville Marie riding, it’s clear there are at least five parties vying for your vote. But on election day, the list on the ballot will be almost twice as long.

There are nine confirmed candidates in the riding, but if the previous general election in 2006 is any indication, the four “other” candidates could end up with less than one per cent of total votes cast – collectively.

Yet, such stark odds, not to mention two previous defeats with a combined vote count of 217, haven’t discouraged Bill Sloan from running in next week’s election as one of four Montreal-area candidates for the Communist Party of Canada.

The reason: he’s just doing it to bring a couple of issues on to the street, literally.

“I picked this riding because I wanted posters on Ste. Catherine St.,” said Sloan, an immigration lawyer. He put up 100 posters voicing disapproval for the Afghan war and Canadian support for “apartheid” Israel, the latter of which have mostly been torn down. He doesn’t have time to campaign nor does he have high hopes for election night.

“I don’t think anyone in my party thinks we’re going to get elected,” he said. “None of us are foolish … we’re running because we want to put forward certain ideas.”

Meanwhile, artist Judith Vienneau is also running in the riding and she too knows she won’t win. The visibility she gets from being a candidate and the opportunity to take part in the political discourse is worth the $1,000 her candidacy has cost her so far along with the long hours spent on making commercials for her party, neorhino.ca.

Her blog receives up to 12,000 visits daily, especially after she sends out updates on her email list. And although her party, the successor to the Rhinoceros Party of Canada, is supposed to be a joke, Vienneau believes it allows disenfranchised voters take part in the political process by giving them an alternative that resonates with them.

“If 40 per cent of the population doesn’t vote, it means it’s a problem of identification.,” she said. “They don’t recognize their identity in mainstream politicians.”

Only five kilometres to the north, independent candidate Mahmood Raza Baig who ran unsuccessfully thrice before, is aiming to highlight issues facing new immigrants in his Papineau riding. Winning the seat is not his priority.

“Actually, I am the winner … the winners are always those people who raise real issues,” he said. “I am not looking at the badges of Member of Parliament right now.”

Baig, a journalist who immigrated from Pakistan 11 years ago, has racked up $2,000 in campaign costs on his credit card. He and some volunteers have put up signs and are giving out business cards door-to-door.

He usually receives a positive response, but some immigrants, especially from countries where authorities and politicians are feared, are afraid to vote for him out of fear of retribution.

“They say perhaps if they vote for me, the Conservatives, Liberals or other parties will get angry at them.”

He explains the concept of a secret ballot and tries to take them in his confidence.

Knocking on doors is something Sloan also did, before launching his campaign. Like all candidates, he needed 100 signatures in order to successfully file his nomination papers with Elections Canada.

“It’s a lot of work to get all the signatures,” he said, noting candidates for major parties can get all the needed signatures in one nomination meeting.

Baig, who lacks the support of a party, is also critical of the system, which he says should allocate space in newspapers for lesser-known candidates and ensure they aren’t left out of debates.

But Brooke Jeffrey, an associate professor of political science at Concordia University and an expert on political parties, says it should be harder for independent candidates to run in elections, since they often run to highlight or promote single issues.

“If you look at the nature of independent candidates associated with no party over time and the issues they raise, probably there are way better venues for them to raise it,” she said. “But maybe they wouldn’t get the media coverage they inevitably get by participating in these kinds of debates.”

Jeffrey ran as a Liberal candidate in the British Columbia riding of Okanagan-Shuswap in the 1993 federal election. While she supports political parties, whether they are mainstream or fringe (such as the Marxist-Leninist Party), she is less supportive of independents who she says often run for publicity they inevitably get and clog up the debate in the process.

Baig meanwhile continues his struggle, hoping for a better showing than the 77 votes he got last time in Outremont.

“I successfully raised the voice of my people,” he said. “Seventy-seven votes is my sacrifice. I sacrifice my time, my money.”

Sloan, the Communist Party candidate, says the exercise would be fun and worth it – if only he had time and his signs had been left alone.”