With a federal election looming, mainstream political parties aren’t the only organizations eager to grab the ears and minds of the voting public.

Fringe parties are hoping for some headway with disgruntled voters, while special interest groups also want to ensure that their issues are top of mind.

Tim Kane, senior partner at Delta Media in Ottawa, says now is a good time for special interest groups to garner public support.

Kane says some of the issues he sees coming to the forefront during the election include student assistance, independent living for Canadians with disabilities, healthcare, and immigration.

Kane says healthcare will be on the agenda, with the Liberal’s national drug plan, Pharmacare, scrutinized.

Generic drug manufacturer Apotex is currently running full-page newspaper ads pointing out the Liberals’ failure to keep their 1993 promise to scrap Bill C-91, which supports patent protection for name-brand drug companies.

In its message, Apotex doesn’t come out in favor of Pharmacare, stating that the only way to lower drug costs is to allow generic drugs on the market sooner to compete with brand names.

Meanwhile, Delta itself is running an advertising campaign.

Kane says the 26-week television campaign, airing around political programming on CBC Newsworld, is to position Delta as a firm with in-depth knowledge of the sensitive issues in Ottawa and the ability to reach out from Ottawa to the world.

Ian Anderson, president of Temple Scott Associates, says groups bringing their issues to the attention of the public now should be sure they are already on the agenda of the political parties.

He says that, in order to do that, groups must begin lobbying six months to a year before an election.

While generic drug manufacturers may be advertising now, he says the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada was probably much more effective because it began lobbying politicians about a year ago on behalf of its members, the brand-name drug companies.

He says if you’re not front-and-centre in the minds of politicians now, you are going to have very little influence on mainstream parties.

Anderson points out that it’s not necessary to run a campaign to attract the attention of politicians. Loyalty can be built at the local level by contributing to and being involved in their campaigns – something the insurance industry has done very well over the years.

Fringe parties are also starting to get their messages out to the public.

While these upstart groups had little chance of making their mark in the past, the success of regional parties Reform and Bloc Quebecois in the last election shows the voters don’t dismiss them out of hand if they find them to be a credible alternative.

For example, in March, Elections Canada recognized the Canadian Action Party as a party able to field candidates in the coming election.

The party’s founder is Paul Hellyer, former Liberal cabinet minister in the Pearson and Trudeau governments, who has been trying for a number of years to make monetary reform a key political issue.

Brad Chapman, spokesperson for the 43-candidate-strong cap, says the distribution of a comic book in Ontario and the Maritimes explaining the Party’s economic theories has tapped a massive chord with disaffected voters, and produced lots of applications to become party members, together with small-amount cheques.

Chapman says there is no large sponsor of the party other than Hellyer, who says he expects to spend more than a $1 million of his own money on the campaign.

In addition to its direct mail comic book effort, the party plans to take advantage of its six minutes of free television time. It also has a Web site at http://home.istar.ca/~cap-pac and may do some newspaper advertising, according to Chapman.

All communication is being handled by Hellyer.

The Solutions Ontario Party of Canada is another new regional party looking to represent Canadians in Parliament.

Founder Greg Vezina, a Toronto businessman with a long history of political involvement, expects to field candidates in all 103 Ontario ridings.

To get around the Elections Act, which doesn’t subsidize parties that do not obtain a certain percentage of popular vote, Vezina says the party is hiring candidates at $1,000 a week, an expense that is covered in the Act.

The Solutions Ontario Party is running help wanted ads now.

Vezina has asked Toronto agency Padulo Integrated to help with advertising needs including the free television time available to all parties.