Natural Law Party of Canada

The Natural Law Party of Canada was the Canadian branch of the international Natural Law Party founded in 1992 by a group of educators, business leaders, and lawyers who practiced Transcendental Meditation. It never won a seat in Parliament, nor came close to doing so.

Its most famous member was the magician Doug Henning, who ran as a candidate for the Natural Law Party in the 1993 federal election. Henning was featured so prominently in the party's ads that many Canadian voters mistakenly thought he was the party's leader; the party was in fact led by Dr. Neil Paterson.

The NLP advocated federal funding for research in yogic flying, believing that this form of meditation was the key to achieving world peace and universal health. It also proposed the construction of Maharishi Veda Land near Niagara Falls. The project was never completed.

The NLP was primarily active in the provinces of Ontario (Natural Law Party of Ontario), Quebec (Parti de la loi naturelle du Québec) and British Columbia. The provincial wings ran candidates without success, and have become defunct.

The party was de-registered by Elections Canada, the Canadian government's election agency, on January 23, 2003.

Election results

Election	# of candidates nominated	# of seats won	# of total votes	% of popular vote	% of pop vote NLP ridings
1993	231	0	85,450	0.63%	0.77%
1997	136	0	37,085	0.29%	0.61%
2000	69	0	16,573	0.13%	0.53%

See also

• Natural Law Party candidates, 2000 Canadian federal election
• Natural Law Party candidates, 1997 Canadian federal election
• Natural Law Party candidates, 1993 Canadian federal election
• Natural Law Party
• Natural Law Party of Ontario
• Parti de la loi naturelle du Québec
• List of political parties in Canada