A crowd on the left, and on the right

Jeff Green | May 11, 2022

As of Monday, there were 7 registered candidates for Member of Provincial Paliament in Lanark Frontenac Kingston.

Four of them represent the four parties with members in the legislature: Amanada Pulker-Mok represents the Liberals, Drew Cumpson, the NDP, John Jordan the Conservatives, and Marlene Spruyt the Green Party.

The presumptive front runner in the local election is John Jordan, of the Conservatives. Although he is a first-time candidate, the Conservative Party has held this riding since the riding came into being in 2013, with at least 45% of the vote each time. The three centre or left centre parties; Liberals, NDP, and Green's, have split the rest of the vote each time.

It may not make a big difference, since they very new, but two parties to the political right of the Progressive Conservatives, also have candidates in Lanark Frontenac Kingston.

Neither of them are represented MPP Randy Hillier, who was elected as a Conservative the last time around. He announced in December that he would be a candidate in this election as the leader of the Ontario First Party, but he later announced that he is not running and the Ontario First Party seems to have dissipated.

But two other parties, both led by former Conservatives, are running candidates in the riding. Thomas Mulder is a candidate for the Ontario Party, which is led by former Federal Conservative MP Derek Sloan, and Marcin Lewandowski is a candidate for the New Blue Party, founded the team of sitting MPP Belinda Karahalios and her husband Jim Karahalios, who is the party leader.

Belinda Karahalios, Randy Hillier and Derek Sloan and all share the distinction of having been elected as Conservatives, and later being removed from caucus by their party leader. And Jim Karahalios has the distinction of being declared ineligible for leadership positions in both the provincial and federal Conservative Parties.

The Ontario and True Blue Parties reject a wide spectrum of liberal causes, from discussions about race and colonialism to the promotion of LGBTQ rights. The True Blue Party says it will get rid of “Critical Race Theory” from our school system, and the Ontario Party is more explicitly tied to a fundamentalist message, with its slogan “freedom, faith, family”.

The Ontario Party’s leader. Derek Sloan, is the most closely associated with Randy Hillier, and his attitude toward COVID restrictions mirrors that of Hillier. Sloan was also an enthusiastic supporter of the so-called “freedom convoy” that resulted in an occupation in the City of Ottawa , and was eventually put down by police in February.

While Belinda Karahanios was ejected from the Conservative Party Caucus in 2020 over the governments COVID response, it was because of her objection to what she called a “unnecessary over-reach” in Bill 195, The Re-opening Ontario Act.

"By transferring away the ability for Ontario MPPs to consider, debate, and vote on how emergency powers are used on Ontarians, Bill 195 essentially silences every single Ontario MPP on the most important issue facing our legislature today," she told the CBC, at the time.

Both the True Blue and the Ontario Parties strongly oppose the carbon tax policies, and they both are happy to associate Ontario Premier Doug Ford with Prime Minister Trudeau, telling voters that a vote for the Doug Ford Conservatives is support for left wing causes.

In Lanark Frontenac Kingston, three parties to the left of the Conservatives have been sharing up to 55% of the vote. This has left the Conservative Party with easy wins as long as they can retain their core vote 45% of the electorate. The prospect of two parties to the right of the Conservatives eating up some of the Conservative vote could potentially create a more competitive race this time around.

That all depends, however, on how much support there is in LFK for the messages that the two new parties are promoting.

Randy Hillier supporters who believe that the COVID vaccine is a failure, at best, and that the Ottawa Occupation was indeed a “freedom convoy”, may be drawn to the Ontario Party, while those Hillier supporters and others on the right who see the Conservative Party as an anti-democratic force, my support the True Blue Party.

Votes for either party will come from the Conservative base, however, and if each of them attracts a few thousand voters, they could create a competitive riding, in 2026 if not in 2022.

The other side of the equation, the left vote, would still need to coalesce around a single alternative to make that happen, however.