BORIS SHOWS US WHY THIS IS NOT YOUR USUAL BYELECTION

PENTICTON -- Boris St. Maurice has a quick errand on our way to an
interview yesterday at the Hogg's Breath cafe.

"I need to pick up the rest of my six-pack," says the ponytailed
Marijuana Party leader and candidate in today's Okanagan-Coquihalla
byelection. "They wouldn't let me take it into the
restaurant."

The hotel front desk retrieves the partially consumed Sleeman's, a
remnant from Boris's rally the night before at the Gyro Bandshell.

The rally forced the Montreal musician -- formerly with Grim Skunk --
to miss an incendiary all-candidates meeting the same day in Merritt,
at which Stockwell Day and his policies were vilified by other
candidates and floor questioners alike.

But Boris isn't interested in attacking Day. In fact, he invited the
front-running Canadian Alliance leader to the bandshell, and sure
enough Day and his entourage arrived late in the evening.

"He stuck around for five minutes," says a grinning St. Maurice.
"Having Stockwell Day show up at the rally has got to be the highlight
for me so far."

They didn't talk about the pot party's push to legalize marijuana --
"we prefer the term 'ending prohibition'" -- instead engaging in
"friendly chit-chat."

At some point, Boris would like to sit down with the certain winner of
today's contest, to have a serious discussion about ending the failed
prohibition on marijuana. Meanwhile, he regales me with a story about
Day's link to his latest possession bust.

In July, Boris was arrested in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., on his way to a
festival. "My friend and I had put a photo of Stockwell Day on the
dashboard, as a joke, with a rolled-up cigarette that looked like a
joint stuck in his mouth."

The arresting officer, he says, seized the photo "to establish
probable cause for searching the vehicle. So there's a photo of
Stockwell Day with a fake joint in his mouth that's sitting in evidence."

Boris is supposed to be in Sault Ste. Marie today for the court
hearing, but he's sending someone to plead not guilty.

"I'll be here, running against Stock."

This is, ahem, not your usual byelection. Boris is only one of several
candidates with, shall we say, unconventional platforms.

At the Merritt meeting, independent Dennis Baker accused the Alliance
of having an agenda for private prisons, "which will be filled with
your children for their economic benefit."

Herbalist Jim Strauss claimed to be saving 20,000 patients a month
with his homemade heart pills. The Canadian Action Party's Jack Peach
rose to sing the last line of O Canada, prompting Day to urge him to
sing it all.

"That's going to eat into my five minutes."

Schoolteacher Ken Ellis, the NDP candidate, tried to keep the tone
civil by pitching that party's traditional platform. But there was no
holding back from Green Party leader Joan Russow, who blistered Day in
a withering assault.

He practices "the politics of intimidation, misrepresentation and
delusion," Russow charged. "Canada could become an international
pariah if the Alliance agenda goes ahead."

Through it all, Day remained calm and collected, even as he took
repeated sniper fire on abortion and gay rights, the flat tax,
aboriginal policy, privatized health care, the environment, judicial
interference, free trade -- you name it.

Is this race a perfect metaphor for the wacky politics of B.C., or a
precursor for a lightning-rod general election campaign? Both, I imagine.

But as Boris says, "I think it's going to take more than a meeting in
Merritt to throw Stock off."