History

The Pirate Party of Canada has a rather short history, though recent momentum has made our past year full of promise and excitement. What is known as the Pirate Party of Canada was originally conceived in the Pirate Party International forums in 2006, however didn’t gain much momentum at the time. Around early 2009, a small handful of youths from around the country, including founder Rob Britton, Mike Bleskie, Ryan Nelson, and a few others, gathered again and resolved to move forward with an ambition to be the first official Pirate political party outside of Europe. On June 10, 2009, after the Swedish Piratpartiet achieved electoral success, the Pirate Party of Canada was established in the form of a webforum, and the dream began.

Working with other interested groups and interested “copyfighters” across the nation, PPCA quickly gained speed, and with Jake Daynes, a 19 year-old university student from Nanaimo, BC elected as interim leader, the building truly took place. Over the course of late 2009, the campaign took place to gain 250 voters as members, and have them officially endorse the party’s formation. That, plus various smaller details, hammered out by technical director Stephane Bakhos, went by quickly. When the time came to submit our registration, the confirmation took no more than a few weeks. On April 12, 2010, exactly 10 months after the PPCA webforum was first started, Elections Canada declared us to be eligible for registration as a federal party.

In November of 2010, the Pirate Party of Canada ran their first candidate in a Winnipeg North By-Election, Jeff Coleman. He received 94 votes, beating both the Communist Party Candidate and the CHP Candidate.

In Canada’s forty second federal election the Pirate Party ran 10 candidates and received a total of 3198 votes. For more information on that campaign refer to our wiki page.

If you wish to learn a little more about the PPCA’s history, contact us at

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