Could the PPC’s Surge Result in the Party Picking Up Seats in Ontario?

While polling is somewhat scattered as to what the actual numbers are, the PPC has surged to somewhere between 7 – 12 percent support nationwide in the last week, which puts it potentially within striking distance of the NDP, which is sometimes polling at 16%. 

So even if the PPC is closer to that 7%, that means it has larger nationwide support than the Green and Bloc, and it also means it would not exactly be a major shock to see some seats captured by the fledgling PPC this cycle. A few seats in Western and Eastern Ontario appear to have been seriously targeted by the PPC, as well as the PPC leader Maxime Bernier’s old seat of Beauce in Quebec is also in play.

Leader of the New Blue Party of Ontario Jim Karahalios spoke to The National Telegraph about how the PPC’s surge is encouraging his party’s own efforts to change Ontario provincial politics as it shows more and more Canadians aren’t falling into the red vs blue political dichotomy. 

Karhalios explained that:

This federal election has shown us that Canadians and Ontarians are no longer excited with the establishment political parties and blue voters have had it with deceitful, spineless, and unprincipled conservative imposters like Erin O’Toole and Doug Ford. 

The only thing keeping Erin O’Toole afloat in this election is the desire of blue voters to get rid of Justin Trudeau. Despite this and even though their leader is not from Ontario, the PPC is still gaining momentum and traction across Canada and even in Ontario.

As we know the PPC doesn’t have political parties at the provincial level and interestingly in Ontario the name “People’s Party” can’t legally be used to create a new party.

At the provincial level in Ontario, MPP Belinda  Karahalios and I and our team have created and are building the New Blue Party of Ontario.

What the PPC’s momentum in the federal election shows our team is that with a more structured ground game and a more holistic conservative and Ontario-centric strategy, the New Blue Party of Ontario will be well positioned to make inroads fighting lockdowns, vaccine passports, and the rest of the Ontario PC Party’s leftist agenda come next year’s provincial election.

It isn’t just the PPC brand that is attracting voters. The trend is wherever the PPC is seen making inroads happens to be where the candidates themselves have been engaged with the local community and laying the framework for the party, and PPC candidate Brian Everaert running in Sarnia-Lambton might just be the prime example of this phenomenon.

Everaert in an interview with The National Telegraph said:

I was trying to build the brand in Sarnia-Lambton because I knew this election was about freedom and the rights of choice for Canadians. I predicted an early election. A bunch of people thought it would come in October; I thought it would land end of August. It landed in September but I had 300 requests for PPC signs at that time, in the spring.

Everaert gained further recognition when he attended the Rainbow Bridge protest at Niagara Falls with PPC party leader Maxime Bernier, as well as other PPC candidates and others wishing. At this event Canadian and Americans activists came within 30ft on Rainbow Bridge in protest of the land border closure between the U.S. and Canada, back in July.

“Now I can’t go anywhere or stop without having people coming out and thanking me and asking me for signs,” Everaert said, talking about how he and the party has been accepted into the community of Sarnia-Lambton. 

Right now I’m carrying a lot of weight on my shoulders. When I go to the doors, I’m getting a lot of personal support workers and nurses in the community. They’re crying; crying on their doorstep because they’re being forced to, being coerced into doing things they don’t wanna do and they’re doing it because they’re scared of losing their home.

It’s a bittersweet thing for me right now because I know I’m fighting, and I’m fighting for Canadians to have a choice in Sarnia-Lambton, and I’m gonna continue that fight and it’s going very well.

The vaccine choice issue has garnered a lot of support for the PPC this cycle, but Everaert’s campaign must be seen as a success because of issues specific to the riding. 

For those who don’t know, Sarnia is a border city with the United States, in fact the largest city on either side of the border of Lake Huron, so the decision by the Trudeau government to close the land border with the U.S. early last year has been devastating on the economies in that area. As an active member of the Local Iron Workers Union in Sarnia, Everaert knows how to put in a day’s work and understands the necessity for Canadians to be allowed to work. 

Even though the current MP Marilyn Gladu is Conservative (in theory the more economically savvy party over the Liberals), the riding has soured on the CPC over the last year as they’ve conspicuously not achieved much economically. As an example specifically in Sarnia-Lambton, Everaert views the closure of the Sombra ferry as nothing less than a local catastrophe, and also unnecessary. 

The village of Sombra is located within the Sarnia-Lambton riding, and the Sombra Ferry boat had been a fixture in the community from 1951 until 2019 when a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker allegedly damaged the ferryboat dock, although that matter is still in court proceedings. In the intervening time, however, the ferry has been sold as due to the land border closure during 2020, the owners were unable to recoup any losses brought on due to the damaged dock. 

Everaert said on the matter on the Sombra ferry that:

Marilyn Gladu did nothing. We lost that ferry for that community, and this is what I think. She didn’t wanna do to the Liberals, because she was worried if it got fixed the Liberals would have claimed they did it. When you’re an MP, you need to play in the right way. You have to be non-partisan to save your communities.’

This is a bold assertion being made by Everaert here on the issue of the Sombra ferry, however, it is impossible to deny the loss of the boat that destroyed a major economic engine in the area. 

Another area where the Conservatives have come under fire from Everaert and the PPC is on the issue of oil & gas, and the potential closure of the Line 5 pipeline which runs through Sarnia. Again, for those who don’t know Western Ontario is actually an oil-rich area, and so as the new leader Erin O’Toole has attempted a pivot on CPC green/environmental stance, that move has understandably proven unpopular in Western Ontario, and has given Everaert and other PPC candidates a really big political stick to beat the Conservatives over the head with.  

As a refresher, the announcement of a potential closure of the Line 5 gas pipeline by Michigan Gov. Whitmer earlier this year shocked many. While Trudeau did nothing to block Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline out West, apparently the Liberals still had enough political acumen to ask the Americans to halt closing Line 5, although a final decision on the matter has yet to be made and is a critical issue for voters in the riding, where the petroleum industry is a massive section of the economy.

On the topic of oil and gas and resources Everaert stated:

It’s got nothing to do with the environment, it’s got everything to do with the transfer of wealth. We’re the breadbasket of the world for resources… and they want it. And the best way for them to get it is to shame everybody and make the Canadians feel guilty for what makes them wealthy. I’m against that, and we’re not gonna go with that anymore… We’re gonna wreck our whole economy, while China can keep doing anything they want? That’s not gonna happen. That’s what I’m about, that’s what the PPC’s about and I want it recognized. It’s pie in the sky bull.

In this same vein in the interview, Everaert expanded to say all the other legacy political parties in the riding were flirting with ridiculous green energy/environmentalist policies until it came election time when they switched back to caring about jobs and the economy. 

Everaert explained:

I just wanna thank the people of Sarnia-Lambton for paying attention and fighting for freedom. I’d like to do that, but maybe I’ll do that when I win on the 20th. We have good people in this country, and they’ve been pushed too far, and it’s really inspiring to see them take a stand for the future of their kids.’ 

I know there’s gonna be some pushback, once I get up to Ottawa, they probably don’t like an ironworker showing up in the halls of the House of Commons. The Laurentian elites won’t wanna be mixing with me, but I got news for them: they’re not gonna be in the same bars as I am, let’s say that. I’m gonna get down to business. 

The election ends on September 20, so it will be interesting to watch to see if the aggressive PPC ground game in certain ridings, especially for Brian Everaert in Sarnia-Lambton, is going to pay off.