So Long, Randy Hillier

Jeff Green | Mar 09, 2022

“They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom, for trying to change the system from within” - First We Take Manhattan – From the album “I'm Your Man” by Leonard Cohen

“Our political system is broken, there is no sense spending any more time trying to fix a broken system when the problem lies without” - Randy Hillier, from the Facebook post announcing he will not be running for re-election in the Frontenac Lanark Kingston after 15 years as an MPP.

It was a rambling, sometimes repetitive and contradictory 20 minute announcement, filmed from what appeared to be his own home. A tired looking but defiant Randy Hillier announced on Thursday night (March 3) that he will not be running for re-election in the provincial election, that will take place in three months, on June 2.

He began by saying that, “regretfully, we live in a polarised society that has no room for nuance”, and that if anyone looks at the state of political discourse and debate in our society, they will see that “there is a level of vitriol, animus, and invective that is present today to the degree we have never before seen.”

While most people would agree with Hillier on that point, many of them would also suggest that Hillier is one of the forces of polarisation.

His Facebook message certainly included some strong assertions about government policy and what he called “mob rule”.

He said that over the last two years he has been sidelined by the Ontario legislature, “especially since I came out opposing the narrative that we were living in the most dangerous of times that warranted the destruction of our representative democracy, justifying a state of emergency and the suspension of civil liberties and the trampling of our charter of rights and freedoms.”

While his statement itself might appear to some as vitriolic, and filled with animus and invective themselves, he pointed out as evidence the existence of mask mandates and restrictions faced by people who did not support the “dominant narrative” about COVID-19.

In his case that meant being censured by the speaker of the house for refusing to wear a mask in the Ontario legislature, and then in the fall of 2021 being required to undergo COVID tests in order to enter the legislature because of his decision not to take a COVID vaccine, even though, he said, “we know that the tests are faulty, both the rapid antigen test and the PCR test present false positives. This is a measure to amplify fear, and demonstrate to the fearful mob that the government is doing something. They are engaged in negligent, dangerous behaviour.”

On the accuracy of testing, at least, Hillier is overstating the facts.

According to Public Health Ontario data, the false positive rate of the PCR test, which they track as part of their data collection protocol, is approximately 0.01%. The false positive rate for rapid antigen tests is higher, which is why a PCR test is used to confirm a COVID diagnosis.

In his Facebook message, Hillier also decried mask mandates.

He said the “mandatory mask measure is wholly repugnant. It does nothing to stop the spread of the virus but does everything to promote the spread of fear.” He said that the information is “overwhelming that masks have no effect”.

While Hillier did not outline where the “overwhelming evidence” came from, there are reputable studies that conclude that mask wearing in indoor spaces is useful in limiting the spread of airborne pathogens, including COVID-19.

A large report, published by the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences in the United States, made this recommendation:

“The available evidence suggests that near-universal adoption of non-medical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures, could successfully reduce [the rate of transmission] to below 1, thereby reducing community spread if such measures are sustained. Economic analysis suggests that mask wearing mandates could ad1 trillion dollars to the US GDP” - An evidence review of face-masks against COVID-19 – Jeremy Howard et al.

Hillier also said that the measures that have been taken to combat COVID-19, in Ontario, have caused more harm to public health than the disease itself, citing harm to the economy, mental health, and hospital capacity.

But his announcement last week was not about COVID. It was about his political future.

He said that people think that politicians “are representatives of corporations and stakeholder groups, not the people of their riding,” adding “I have come to the conclusion that there is no practical solution to what ails our society ... as we speak the federal government is enacting further legislation criminalising opposing views,” and said that politicians ''are too fearful and cowardly to have an opinion that goes against the mainstream narrative.”

He also made comments about the moral bankruptcy of what he calls, in his tweets, the “msm”, mainstream media.

He cited evidence of how he is supported by the voters in his Lanark Frontenac Kingston riding, saying he was elected four times, “sometimes by a pretty wide margin”, but neglected to make any reference to being a member of a political party, the Progressive Conservative Party that he has been vocally critical of ever since he was forced out in 2019.

He was a member of the party for 15 years. And they did not force him to join in the first place. He left grassroots politics, as President of the Lanark Landowners Association and the Ontario Landowners Association, organisations that he founded with like-minded people, and used the party system and all of his local contacts to secure the nomination in what was the Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addinton riding back in 2005. At that time he said that if the party leadership did not accept his nomination, he would form his own landowners party and challenge them in the safe, rural ridings that they depend on.

The party let him in.

In his first election, he won a narrow victory over the Liberal candidate, a notably close election in what appeared to be a safe Conservative riding, which was easily won in a federal election that same year by Hillier's mentor, Scott Reid. His vote count has been higher in the other elections he has contested, but always under the PC banner that, particularly in Lanark County, ensures any candidate will receive thousands of legacy votes.

He was involved in the inner workings of the party, on its right wing, throughout his time as a member of the members caucus, and was involved in the backroom machinations that led to the removal of three different party leaders over the years; John Tory, Tim Hudak and Patrick Brown. He even ran for the leadership, finishing last and throwing his support to Tim Hudak in 2009. When he was not selected for cabinet by Doug Ford, when Ford was elected in 2018, Hillier said that he had told Ford he did not want to be in cabinet because he wanted to run for Speaker of the House. He was defeated by Ted Arnott in a secret ballot.

In October of 2021, he announced that he was the leader of a new Ontario First Party, although how he had been selected was never clarified, and said he was going to lead the party into the June election. He did not mention that party when he announced he was not going to be running in the June election.

His claim now, that politics is morally bankrupt, certainly opens him up to scrutiny for how he spent his working life since 2006.

One thing that will not happen as the result of Hillier's announcement of March 3: the electorate in Lanark Frontenac Kingston will not have the opportunity to vote for or against Randy Hillier on his own, and we will never know just how many people in Lanark, Frontenac Kingston would be willing to give him that most definitive signal of support and trust, their vote.

It is highly unlikely that he would win the June 2 election, but if he had received a substantial number of votes, say 15%, it would have indicated a measure of support for his views and the way he expresses them.

Perhaps, his heartfelt, regretful and angry condemnation of the political system last week, included just a little bit of political calculation. His stock as a grassroots activist and twitter celebrity would be significantly harmed if he received a humiliatingly low number of votes on June 2, and would only be substantially improved if he actually won the election, which was never going to happen.

(Editor's note – so long Randy, see you on Twitter – but wait, if you are not our MPP, I don't even need to see you there)