​Calgary Driver Fired in ‘Rainbow Bus’ Beef Announces Christian Heritage Party Run Via Batshit Short Film

Forget everything you thought you knew about outlandish election ads.

Jesse Rau—the former Calgary Transit bus driver who refused on religious grounds to maybe have to drive the "rainbow bus" during Pride Parade and was later fired for making "false and misleading comments during various media interviews"—has officially announced his entry as the Christian Heritage Party candidate in the riding of Calgary Signal Hill via an eight-minute video uploaded by YouTube user "EvangelisminAction1."

The short film—scored with a pleasant royalty-free track—features Rau hiking part of a mountain, apparently in pursuit of black bears. Rau's gun strap is placed underneath his upper backpack strap which perhaps makes it difficult to shoot a bear in a hurry. In the course of eight minutes, Rau, who sports a "SAVED" tattoo on his right forearm, mentions "freedom" 13 times, "regulations" (or "rules" or "red tape") another 13 times, uses two mixed metaphors ("defend to the teeth" and "regulated to the teeth"), and drops a single slippery slope argument ("Today it's with hunting, tomorrow it's with family farms: where's the end?")

Rau's big beef appears to be with the recent increase in price for hunting licenses in Alberta; in April, the cost to kill a white-tail deer was bumped up from $36.95 to $39.95, an eight percent spike that Rau fears will turn hunting into "something only elites can do, only those that have money can do." Shooting a black bear, the animal that Rau appears to fancy in the video, requires a license that costs $20.65. The candidate argues that "those who wish to limit our freedoms and regulate us extensively with firearms and the freedom to hunt don't wish to just stop there, it's going to come into your own private property, of course, and your ability to be self-sufficient and independent."

Rau notes in the video that he has friends who know people who have been mauled by grizzly bears "that haven't made the news" (in contrast to the hunter who was recently attacked near Jasper), perhaps serving as a subtle shot at the so-called Media Party. Later in the video, Rau petitions for the proliferation of sidearms to protect against the "thousands of grizzlies running around in Alberta alone." Interestingly, there are fewer than 700 grizzly bears in the province, and using a handgun against bears has previously been called "absolutely stupid" by the OPP officer who oversaw the gun control system in northwest Ontario.

In a surprising turn of events partway through the video, viewers discover that Rau's lone hunting buddy is none other than Walt Wawra, the Michigan cop who became the "laughingstock of Canada" in 2012 when he showed up during the Calgary Stampede and was asked by a couple of overly friendly residents if he was digging Stampede, to which he infamously retorted: "Gentle-men [sic], I have no need to talk with you, goodbye" and later suggested in a letter to the Calgary Herald that he would've felt much safer with a sidearm. In the video, Wawra mispronounces Rau's last name ("Row"), hydrates from a big plastic water bottle just like a health-conscious hunter probably should, and says, "I believe a man has an inalienable right to protect himself and his family, whether it be from a wild animal or from the evil intents of evil men," the latter of which seems slightly redundant but perhaps suggests that Wawra believes that evil men can exhibit virtuous intent, which could actually be quite hopeful for heathens. Wawra's appearance also seems to run counter to Canadian election law, but that's another story. Neither Rau or Wawra shoot at anything in the course of the video although we see recycled footage of a pair of grizzly bears, which are illegal to shoot in Alberta. The ad concludes with Rau stating: "You vote for me, I'll say what I'm going to do, it's going to be clear and I'm going to follow up and do what I say I'm going to do," although by that point it's rather unclear what he has said, or will do, or said he's going to do. Rousing patriotic music kicks in after 42 seconds of subsequent silence and shaky footage of wildlife. Rau concludes the experience by conflating Psalm 33:12a ("Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD") with the outro to the national anthem ("Oh Canada we stand on guard for thee"). Rau attended his first Calgary Signal Hill all-candidates debate on September 28. Larry Heather, the phenomenally conservative activist who is running as an independent candidate against Stephen Harper in Calgary Heritage, attended the debate and tweeted: "About a third of the Signal Hill audience booed Jesse for warning about anal sex. What poor excuses they are for citizens. #yycSignalHill." The leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada is also running in the newly created riding, along with candidates for the Greens, Liberals, NDP, and Conservatives. Artur Pawlowski, the endlessly controversial pastor of Calgary's Street Church, serves as Rau's official agent for the campaign.