From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Black Kite (talk) 17:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Michael Houlton (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
(Find sources:  Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs· FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Biography of a person notable only as an unsuccessful two-time candidate in a political party's leadership elections, so poorly covered in reliable sources that the article doesn't say anything substantive about his career outside of the candidacies — and, for that matter, so poorly covered that it's impossible to even determine whether it's actually a WP:BLP or not. Note also the redirect from Michael Houlton-Charette, present even though this article explicitly states that we don't know whether that was the same person or not — that will also need to be deleted. Delete. Bearcat ( talk) 04:40, 30 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 04:59, 30 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 04:59, 30 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Hello! I am Michael John Houlton-Charette. I was born in Toronto 65 years ago. My Mother remarried after my father's death and I adopted my Step-father's surname in 1979. The article in question is accurate although incomplete. I first ran for office in the 1972 Federal election as an Independent candidate for Peel South at age 21 and twice in Ottawa as Leader of The Canadian Alternative Party, also in Mississauga South as an Independent in 1980. As President of Can-Ad, a loose-knit 30,000 strong "All-Canadian" business lobby, I have been featured in numerous earlier articles across Canada and in recent publications, known more readily as "Michael John Charette", and yes I was the candidate for Mayor of Toronto under my full name of Houlton-Charette. Although I have been in hiatus recently due to the illness of my parents, my career is well documented and rather than be deleted, I would like to expand this article in the near future with dates and published articles of corroboration. Thanks Wikipedia for your kind consideration! Michael J. Houlton-Charette — Preceding unsigned comment added by MiJoH-C ( talkcontribs) 11:40, 6 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talkcontribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

Being a candidate in any election, in and of itself, doesn't entitle a person to a Wikipedia article. You would have to (a) either win election to a notable office, or (b) already have established enough notability for other things to get past a different inclusion rule. But merely running for office doesn't make you someone who warrants permanent coverage in an encyclopedia. Bearcat ( talk) 16:55, 8 September 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Can't find any evidence of significant coverage in reliable sources under any of his names. Tiller54 ( talk) 18:26, 9 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jenks24 ( talk) 11:28, 11 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the opportunity to add and clarify points made by our fellow users in this debate. As a Wiki-Greenhorn and subject of this article up for deletion I would like to refer to myself as "The Subject" to avoid sounding too personal. Firstly, the matter of reliable sources must consider archived material specific to Canada, Ottawa and particularly Toronto. The Toronto Daily Star (TheStar.com) which is the largest circulating newspaper in Canada, has 39 articles listed ( http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/results.htmlst=advanced&QryTxt=Michael+Houlton&publications=ALL&type=current&datetype=6&frommonth=01&fromday=01&fromyear=1971&tomonth=01&today=02&toyear=1981&sortby=CHRON) - for The Subject's birthname Houlton, starting on March 16th 1971 with the headline "How Young Ideas Often Crack Up Against The Dollar Barrier" and stating that The Subject's problem of raising investment dollars for a good idea in Canada was "as Canadian as the Mounties!" The "idea" is an All-Canadian AC Registered Trade Mark to give some recognition to Canadian-Owned business, as the red maple leaf was almost exclusively used by larger multinational corporations with massive ad budgets that virtually overwhelmed Canadian identity in business. Canada's flag was only five years old and epic political battles over language, French, English and Canadian identity were looming, culminating in two referenda in 1980 and 1995. The Subject was a familiar voice throughout these emotional public debates. Support from the over 30,000 strong business lobby Can-Ad and thousands more patriotic citizens, led to the creation of The Canadian Alternative Party (C.A.P.) and the only fully debated and covered constitutional proposal detailed and distributed since 1977. An article appeared in 1978 on the front page of The (Ottawa) Citizen (Ottawa Citizen Oct. 14th 1978) featuring a picture of The Subject with Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau on stage before a high school assembly as a C.A.P. candidate in the Ottawa Centre bi-election. The students had asked to debate The Subject's proposed constitution entitled "The Canadian Declaration of Independence". Many more intriguing nuances and details must be left to further postings.

Sticking to the most reliable source, The Star (The Toronto Star May 23 1982) ran a full page article in the Business section on The Subject, explaining the change of surname from Houlton to to Charette. It started with "Mike Charette is surely the most determined lobbyist in Canada." Subsequent articles are numerous and notable such as The Star's front page picture and text (The Toronto Star June 2nd 1987) reprinted also on the front page of virtually every major Canadian paper. (The Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Globe and Mail, Montreal Gazette, Vancouver Sun etc. etc. on June 2 1987) The Subject pictured being restrained on the floor of the House of Commons in Ottawa is challenging the impromptu constitutional proposal put forward in haste and dictated by only 11 First Ministers, called The Meech Lake Accord, as being tantamount to treason. After placing former PM Trudeau's damning critique "On The Table", and with hands upon the Mace, symbol of parliamentary authority, The Subject orated these words..."I Protest This Treason!!!...I use these words both strongly and advisedly! The country of Canada is under attack from within!" Subsequently charged with causing a disturbance and facing a maximum of seven years imprisonment The Subject led a 2yr. coast-to-coast campaign, reported through every media in all Canadian cities. Helped by a growing number of academics, lawyers, politicians, pundits and citizenry, the court case was won, The Meech Lake Accord died, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney resigned and the Progressive Conservative Party was reduced from a super-majority, to holding only two seats in the House after the '93 election. The author of the article up for deletion who introduced the subject as a "political activist" must have been aware of some of these facts upon which for now, an adjournment is in order, given the length of this part of the discussion. To bring us more up to date, this letter by The Subject, was recently published in The Star on Sept. 12th 2014 ( http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editors/2014/09/12/pm_confused_about_cartier.html) detailing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's most recent constitutional error. Thank you for your kind consideration! MiJoH-C ( talk) 22:55, 15 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talkcontribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

In all of this rambling, you still have yet to provide one single credible reason why you would qualify for an encyclopedia article. Running as a candidate in a by-election that you didn't win counts for nothing; our inclusion rules for politicians only cover people who won election and thereby actually held a notable office, and do not grant a presumption of notability to every single person who ever ran in an election. Founding a minor political party that never actually won a seat counts for nothing. Writing letters to the editor counts for nothing (I've had letters to the editor published, for heaven's sake). And I can assure you that you had far less substantive effect on the failure of the Meech Lake Accord or the results of the Canadian federal election, 1993 than you seem to think you did (they were both foregone conclusions quite independently of you). And on and so forth — none of this constitutes a reason why you would belong in an encyclopedia under any of our notability rules, and all of it constitutes a reason why you need to read our conflict of interest rules pronto monto. Bearcat ( talk) 07:08, 16 September 2014 (UTC) reply

The dubious distinction of dispelling the myth that all Canadians are polite is duly noted and more worthy of the title Bearscat! Your misconstrued chronology and erroneous use of fact is not as easily dismissed. "Michael Houlton" is an article titled in the Wikipedia encyclopedia. It has been an article since Feb. 13th 2007! I, Michael John Houlton-Charette, have never ever requested such an article be created! A conflict of interest is not even possible under this circumstance, "pronto" or "monto". We are not even remotely in the process of discussing what constitutes the creation or acceptance of an article! The accredited article has been revised 11 times since it was created and accepted and 5 times in the first year. The 5th revision was conducted by an editor named "Bearcat"! The 3rd revision was to include a four letter expletive which is clearly contrary to Wikipedia policy. To be clear, the subject of this article has never ever uttered an expletive in public, print, or otherwise given cause for such a statement! It was endured for over three years before a wise editor had the decency to remove it as I had expected and hoped might happen even without my intervention someday. The Bearcat revision seemed to overlook this infraction and that too is duly noted.


Now, if I may continue, let us logically and without prejudice examine the motion put forward by editor and administrator Bearcat to delete the article entitled Michael Houlton. MiJoH-C ( talk) 23:34, 17 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talkcontribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

Wikipedia has different standards for notability and the use of reliable sourcing than it did in 2007; a lot of articles that were created back then don't meet our standards as they exist today, and cannot be kept anymore. In particular, we used to have a rule that anybody who led a political party automatically qualified for an article, even if the sourcing was weak — but that rule no longer applies, and a person does not qualify for an article on that basis anymore. We've had to get a lot stricter about what's keepable and what isn't than we were seven to ten years ago, because we've learned some very hard lessons about what can happen, both to us and to you as an article topic, if we don't insist on much more solid sourcing than we used to.
And we regularly catch a lot of articles that never actually met our inclusion standards, but have slipped through the cracks just because there's so much stuff to deal with — so the amount of time that an article has existed is never, in and of itself, a valid reason for keeping an article. If it doesn't meet our inclusion and sourcing standards as written, then the fact that it's seven years old rather than seven minutes doesn't matter one whit.
And incidentally, conflict of interest doesn't just apply to whether you created the article or not; even your responses in this discussion are straining the limits of that policy. Having a Wikipedia article is not an entitlement that you're allowed to demand for yourself, and not having one is not an attack on you as an individual — it's simply a reflection of the fact that the reliable source coverage isn't there to demonstrate that you pass any of our notability rules. Don't take it personally — heck, I don't pass any notability rules either. Bearcat ( talk) 01:15, 18 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia Quotes Clarifying Two Previously Presumed Facts:

The Canadian federal election of 1993 was not a foregone conclusion!

"An election had to be called in the fall of 1993, since Parliament's term would expire some time in September. By the end of the summer, Campbell's personal popularity was far ahead of that of Chrétien. Support for the Progressive Conservative Party had also increased after Campbell won the leadership, and they were only a few points behind the Liberals, while Reform had been reduced to single digits."

The Meech Lake Accord was also not a forgone conclusion!

"Opposition leaders generally agreed to the accord. Liberal Party leader John Turner was put into a tough position, considering the popularity of the agreement in Quebec (a traditional Liberal stronghold until Trudeau's patriation of the constitution in 1982) and the Trudeau ideal of federal power within the Federation. He soon agreed to the accord, causing a rift in his party.[1] New Democratic Party leader Ed Broadbent also agreed with the accord.[3] Preston Manning of the Reform Party opposed it, saying it gave Quebec unequal status among provinces.[1] The Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, made a rare foray into political matters when she publicly expressed on 22 and 23 October 1987 her personal support for the Meech Lake Accord, for which she received criticism from its opponents.[4]" MiJoH-C ( talk) 06:33, 18 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talkcontribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

Oh, really? Keep in mind that the overall course of the campaign, as it unfolds, has as much effect on whether something is a "foregone conclusion" or not as the initial starting position does. The 1993 election wasn't a foregone conclusion because the Tories were already toast before the writ was even dropped; it was a foregone conclusion because Kim Campbell's campaign skills during the campaign were abysmal, and the party's decisions during the election campaign were bad ones that alienated a lot of their initial supporters. Not a single media source on the planet credits you with singlehandedly shooting down the party's chances of winning that election, the way you claim above; they lay that at the feet of Campbell herself. And Meech became a foregone conclusion because of events that took place during the course of the ratification process. Not a single media source on the planet credits you as being the person who turned the tide on it, the way you claim above; they accord that status to Elijah Harper and Clyde Wells. Bearcat ( talk) 14:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC) reply

My plea for civility is merely a request to deal with the facts! Bearcat's "Oh Really?" - "Not a single media source on the planet credits you with singlehandedly shooting down the party's chances of winning that election, the way you claim above;" is puerile emotion that should remain in the sandbox.

There is no claim by me in any part of this discussion to "singlehandedly" accomplishing anything!

I saw only one "forgone conclusion", that Bearcat would answer with another grossly exaggerated emotional diatribe when confronted with Wikipedia articles as a notable source. His quote "And Meech became a foregone conclusion because of events that took place during the course of the ratification process." - a 3 yr. process, with an 11th Hour emergency First Ministers Meeting is not a "forgone conclusion". According to the poll referenced by Wikipedia - It was a cliff-hanger to the very end going right down to the wire or I should say feather, raised by Elijah Harper. Only "By June 1990, the same polls showed that a majority now rejected the accord.[5]"

You can't argue it both ways! It injures the logical mind and misuses the phrase, as linked by this Wikipedia reference as an appeal to ridicule.

Appeal to ridicule or in any way humorous, to the specific end of a foregone conclusion that the argument lacks any substance which would merit consideration. ... 1 KB (186 words) - 08:46, 28 May 2014

The only use by Wikipedia of a political "forgone conclusion" is when the field is vacant of a majority of opposition candidates, a political leader concedes defeat before the vote or in the case of a virtual dictatorship.

Exempli Gratia: Manitoba general election, 1941 The coalition's victory was a foregone conclusion: in most constituencies, there were no anti-coalition candidates. The opposition came mostly from anti-coalition dissidents in the governing parties. These candidates did not run a coordinated campaign, and did not seriously threaten the government.

New South Wales state election campaign, 2007 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Main article: New South Wales state election, 2007 Flag of New South Wales.svg Election campaign, 2007 An election campaign was held ahead of a general election for the 54th Parliament of New South Wales on Saturday, 24 March 2007. The result—a win for the social-democratic Australian Labor Party and its new leader Morris Iemma—was widely perceived as a foregone conclusion, with opposition leader Peter Debnam conceding as much the week before the poll.

That being stated, a further attempt to deal strictly with the subject matter of this motion to delete is fully in order. MiJoH-C ( talk) 01:24, 19 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talkcontribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply


Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica 1000 13:15, 19 September 2014 (UTC) reply

  • Delete Fails WP:CS.-- Deletapedia ( talk) 18:37, 19 September 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Weak/Delete When using the subject's previous name I was able to dig up many articles and quite a few of them were not simple mentions but articles mostly dedicated to the person in question so I see some notability here but we must contrast that against 'politician.' A person does not necessarily need to win an election to become part of the 'enduring political history' of a city or nation ( Emperor Norton for example) but I see none of that in this particular case. Orasis ( talk) 22:42, 19 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Thanks For this. "Some notability" as stated above has come a long long way from none! It starts to peel off only the very first layer of the onion skin of what the Wikipedia article "Michael Houlton" states in its opening sentence. "Michael Houlton was a Canadian political activist." and consider that in addition as a citizen, I, Michael John Houlton-Charette, more commonly known as Michael John Charette, am still a Canadian political activist!

The Wikipedia article "Activism" states that "Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, or direct social, political, economic, or environmental change, or stasis. Various forms of activism range from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning" "Activists are also public watchdogs and whistle blowers, attempting to understand all the actions of every form of government that acts in the name of the people: all government must be accountable to oversight and transparency. Activism is an engaged citizenry." It goes on to include that activists "lobby" .

The first sentence of the motion to delete this article (below) is quite incomplete.

"Biography of a person notable only as an unsuccessful candidate for municipal office, and as the leader of an unregistered political party which never actually contested a partisan election and doesn't have a Wikipedia article to redirect him to."

The complete list of my Wikipedia linked electoral political activism is as follows:

/info/en/?search=Mississauga_South "Canadian Federal Election, 1972 held on October 30, Michael Houlton" "Canadian federal election, 1980 held on February 18, Michael John Charette" "Canadian Federal Election, 1993 held on October 25, Michael John Charette"

/info/en/?search=Ottawa_Centre "By-election on October 16, 1978 Michael John Houlton" "Canadian federal election, 1979 held on May 22, Michael John Charette"

/info/en/?search=Ottawa_municipal_election, held on November 13_1978 "Capital Ward, Michael John Houlton"

/info/en/?search=Ward_5_(Mississauga) "External Link 1994 - pdf" Mississauga Municipal Election November 14th, 1994, Candidate for Mayor, Michael John Charette placed 4th of 7 candidates with 1,373 votes.

/info/en/?search=Toronto_municipal_election,_1997 (held November 10) Candidate "for Mayor, City of Toronto" - Michael John Houlton-Charette

/info/en/?search=Ontario_Liberal_Party_leadership_elections "1973 leadership convention (Held on October 28, 1973.) Michael Houlton" "1976 leadership convention (Held on January 25, 1976.) Michael Houlton

/info/en/?search=Ontario_general_election,_1977 Ottawa-South (held on June 9th) Michael Houlton

MiJoH-C ( talk) 10:11, 21 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 10:19, 21 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 10:33, 21 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 10:44, 21 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talkcontribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

Delete Fails wp:politician. Has been an unsuccessful candidate in a few elections, as listed above. Dcfc1988 ( talk) 22:46, 21 September 2014 (UTC) reply

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/few Although indefinite in nature, a few is usually more than two (two often being referred to as "a couple of"), and less than "several". Few is grammatically affirmative but semantically negative...

To be kind, your first edit on record (less than a few, one to be exact, this one) is a very shallow type of put down. It may have involved checking out a "few" of the political campaigns listed above, but examining all 11 would be quite an in depth undertaking. In just two Ontario Liberal Leadership campaigns, I attended, addressed and received coverage at over 50 all-candidates meetings across an area the size of the U.K. that culminated with a 25 minute continuous direct unedited nationally televised CBC broadcast, each. They are all archived! In 1973 I received a standing ovation from some 3,000 people in the ballroom of the Royal York Hotel that caused such a buzz that Robert Nixon, the winner and future Treasurer of Ontario, spent the first 5 minutes of his keynote convention speech addressing "Michael John Houlton" and this ideological and persistent point from my campaign. "There are opponents, there are political opponents...but, they're not enemies... and he's right!" MiJoH-C ( talk) 08:50, 22 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 03:25, 22 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 04:30, 22 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talkcontribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

It doesn't matter whether you ran in a "few" elections or a hundred. As I've already explained above, our inclusion rules for politicians only grant an entitlement to keep an article on here to people who have won an election and thereby held a notable office — a person does not qualify for an article on here for simply running in elections that they didn't win. Nor does a person qualify for an article on here for merely being a candidate for the leadership of a political party — if you cannot properly source that they already passed our inclusion rules before they became a candidate (e.g. by already being a sitting MP or MPP), then they would have to win the leadership, not just run for it, to become a valid article topic on here. (And even that only applies to major political parties which have actually held seats in a legislative body — it does not apply to small "fringe" parties that only run a few candidates and don't win anywhere.)
You still have yet to provide any substantive evidence, consistent with our content and inclusion rules, of why you would qualify for an encyclopedia article. You appear, rather, to be taking this discussion as a personal affront to your self-image, which is not helpful and has nothing to do with Wikipedia's content and inclusion rules. We don't keep articles just because the subject wants to have an article on Wikipedia — we keep articles that are properly compliant with our inclusion and sourcing and content rules. Bearcat ( talk) 16:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Comment Wikipedia does not require election for notability in regards to politicians "Major local political figures who receive (or received) significant press coverage. Just being an elected local official does not guarantee notability." Also... "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage." --This person has had press coverage from 1980 until 2013. 33 years of non-trivial coverage may be notable. We have Political activist BLP's with far, far less press coverage. We also must remember that notability is not temporary. I am now on the fence. Orasis ( talk) 07:30, 24 September 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Strong delete Lacks the significant coverage required for GNG and doesn't meet the notability requirements for politicians. Merely running for office is not enough to show notability. 131.118.229.17 ( talk) 23:37, 23 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Not so! You have an article about an unelected independent candidate whose distinction appears to be only that he's run in so many elections and though "unelected" is listed in all of these categories Categories: Living people Independent candidates in the 1979 Canadian federal election Independent candidates in the 1980 Canadian federal election Independent candidates in the 1984 Canadian federal election Independent candidates in the 1988 Canadian federal election Abolitionist Party of Canada candidates in the 1993 Canadian federal election Independent candidates in the 1997 Canadian federal election Independent candidates in the 2000 Canadian federal election Independent candidates in the 2004 Canadian federal election Independent candidates in the 2006 Canadian federal election Canadian political party leaders Carleton University alumni Canadian social crediters People from Rouyn-Noranda Politicians from Ottawa 1951 births Independent candidates in Ontario provincial elections Canadian cannabis activists Canadian gamblers

Now when the category of "Poltical Activist" is searched for Canada and virtually every other open democratic society, well over 50% of the people who appear on my Wikipedia searches have never been elected, some never have even run for political office, yet they have an article, like for myself, that describes them as "political activists".

Deductive reasoning contends that you cannot author so many inaccurate personal affronts laden with some rather unusually caustic sarcasm in you earlier postings and because I must insist on facts, and back them up in my defense of you, that I'm taking it as some kind of "a personal affront to your (read my) self-image." by simply responding.

Friendly banter aside, I do very much appreciate you taking your time and energy to help direct us in this discussion. As a Canadian and an unabashed "homer" I admire your work and position within the annals of Wikipedia, but as an archived activist in some very key areas in the landscape of Canada's political spectrum, I see your effort as an affront to my value as an active catalyst to Canada's recent evolution. E.G. Front Page Picture in Le Devoir November 23 1994, On the 22nd, I confronted Premier Jacques Parizeau with a pointed question in his Royal York Canadian Club press conference about "The next referendum..."

"What about the last referendum!" I challenged, "Don't you trust the will of the Québec people! Is it not good enough for you!" He completely silenced himself, stormed out of the room and was heard wailing for a week, all the way from The National Assembly. I finished his press conference for him to the very last journalist. With constitution in hand, I extolled the masterpiece of Sir George-Étienne Cartier's "Indivisible Federation" as opposed to Canada's dangerously all too often egregiously misstated, supposed Confederation. Je me souviens! MiJoH-C ( talk) 01:48, 24 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 02:15, 24 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 07:44, 24 September 2014 (UTC) reply

  • I somewhat agree. After researching into this person I do believe that he meets the general notability guideline criteria but not the criteria for politicians. As a politician is this person notable? No. As a Political activist I do believe that it is highly probable and I have read BLP's (again) that have received, far, far less non-trivial media coverage from reliable sources. That said I think the article needs to be improved. Orasis ( talk) 07:41, 24 September 2014 (UTC) reply
Nope, you're still missing the key distinction here. The candidate you're talking about, John Turmel, does not have an article because he ran as an election candidate and lost — he has an article because he's listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the person who has run the largest number of non-winning election campaigns in the entirety of recorded human history. Getting an article because an international media source has singled out his 82 non-winning electoral campaigns as a unique accomplishment is a "special case" situation that's unique to him alone, not a precedent which would allow everybody who ever ran as a non-winning candidate to claim entitlement to keep a poorly sourced Wikipedia article — it's the holding of a recognized world record, not the fact that his name has been on a ballot, that gets him over the bar.
And apart from him, every single person in any of those "candidates" categories you mention is somebody who was already notable enough for a Wikipedia article for something else (e.g. having previously served in a provincial legislature, being a notable writer or athlete or lawyer, etc.) separately from also happening to have been an unsuccessful federal election candidate. None of them has an article because they ran in a federal election and lost — they have articles because they attained notability for other things independently of being federal election candidates. The candidacy is merely a minor extra detail about a person who already qualified for an article for some other reason, and does not constitute evidence that any unelected candidate is entitled to keep an article on here just for having been a candidate. See WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. And if you find anybody who doesn't fit that criterion, and is claiming notability solely for having been an unelected candidate in a federal election without any other evidence of notability for some other reason independent of the candidacy, then they're completely eligible for deletion too. Bearcat ( talk) 20:19, 25 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Thank you for this User:Orasis and of course I totally concur with your assessment of a somewhat sticky situation. It allows me to take in a rather deep intellectual breath of the fresh air of intelligence that you have provided. What is really amazing is that my minor edit of punctuation was briefly interrupted at exactly the same moment as your welcome offering. MiJoH-C ( talk) 08:01, 24 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 06:57, 27 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Kindly note that "agrees with me" is not the definition of "intelligence", and "disagrees with me" is not the definition of its lack. Bearcat ( talk) 20:30, 25 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Noted, also in kind, is that "agree with me" is a quote totally invented by User:Bearcat and does not nearly reflect my comment on the previous posting. What I did post was that "I totally concur" with the subjective assessment by fellow editor, User:Orasis, who appears to have done a great deal of research into the subject of this article. If you would like a personal quote from me that reflects some kind of collective intelligence, try "Criticism is the polish of excellence!"

I don't see what good it does to surplant your comment, User:Bearcat, in a different chronological order than it occurred. Most of the archived publications have absolutely nothing to do with elections at all. When combined together with those researched under Michael Houlton 1971-1980; plus those researched under Michael John Charette and Michael John Houlton-Charette 1980-2014, it ads up to 43 years of continuous notability, only keystrokes away. MiJoH-C ( talk) 00:34, 26 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Comments in Wikipedia discussion pages are not threaded in purely chronological order; if comment C is in response to comment A, rather than a new discussion, then it goes directly after Comment A even if an entirely unrelated Comment B was posted before it. Bearcat ( talk) 22:30, 26 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Duly noted and appreciated! Considering changing my User name to Grasshopper but it's sure to be already taken.

Please allow me to link you directly to the Canadian Library of Parliament's pre-eminent archive of record, Hansard, Nov. 26 1973, The 29th Parliament, 1st Session, Volume 8, Question No. 2177 on The Order Paper, page 8111 bottom right and page 8112 top left, where a half page question and its dubious answer, documents a three year effort to make a single application to Industry Canada for help to give recognition to Canadian-Owned business. Notable coverage for the subject Michael J. Houlton was focused on the fact that in all of the government agencies under the watchful eye of Members of Parliament and the media, no application was permitted. When question #2177 is coupled with a previous question #1891, Hansard May 9th 1973, Order Paper, it became perfectly clear that I was being systematically lied to by my own government both on record and for the record. Once question No. 2177 was printed in early June/73 I decided to take my case directly onto the floor of the House of Commons on June 21st. "I demand Freedom of Speech! I've got something to say, and I'm going to say it!" This protest was covered the next day on the front page of The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Journal, throughout the wire service and the rest of the electronic media.

http://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC2901_08/3?r=0&s=1

That being just the beginning! MiJoH-C ( talk) 03:09, 26 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 08:33, 26 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 09:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 00:03, 27 September 2014 (UTC) MiJoH-C ( talk) 00:20, 27 September 2014 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.