Bernier And PPC HQ Need To Stop Stifling the Party’s Grassroots If They Want To Be Taken Seriously

Written By Anthony Zambito, Posted on December 4, 2022

This opinion article was written by Anthony Zambito, the 2021 PPC candidate for Dufferin-Caledon.

When Maxime Bernier created the People’s Party of Canada in 2018, many Canadians had a cautious yet optimistic outlook on the prospect of a new right-of-centre federal party to challenge both the ruling Liberals and the opposition Conservatives. Many conservative-minded Canadians were still scratching their heads at the results of the 2017 federal Conservative leadership convention that saw Andrew Scheer edge out Bernier in a surprise last-ballot victory.

(Photo from The National Observer)

Thousand of CPC members felt disenfranchised by the result, still claiming to this date that the internal election was rigged in favour of the establishment’s favoured candidate. When he walked away from the CPC, Maxime Bernier put himself in the perfect position to champion the causes of the alienated grassroots conservative movement, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Reform Party existed in the late 20th century. It’s rather unfortunate, but even though the PPC has gone through two federal elections and Maxime Bernier continues to tour across the country, it’s gone almost unnoticed that the PPC leadership team has ongoingly been alienating the same grassroots base that joined it out of frustration with the CPC. This is true in my Ontario riding, and I know this to be true across the country.

On a personal level, the PPC has allowed me to connect with thousands of like-minded members of my community. From a political standpoint, the PPC’s leadership team has taken every step to stifle the grassroots political movement the party was meant to embody, and especially in Ontario, its ranks have been filled with malfeasant political actors looking to use the party to advance their own separate political agenda.

(Photo from SaskToday)

 I first took note in 2019 as promising 2018 candidates like Frank Vaughan and Ian Prittie became vocal about how the party never delivered on their promise to create a constitution or host a national convention. In addition to this, even though PPC has a national structure to administrate the party, Maxime Bernier is technically still the sole governing authority of the Party.

Bernier and PPC HQ have even gone as far as deregistering EDAs for pushing back against the directives from party administrators from PPC HQ in Ottawa. In Ontario, PPC HQ effectively deregistered the Hastings-Lennox Addington PPC Association because they had the audacity to draft and advocate for a party constitution. In British Columbia, PPC HQ deregistered the Kelowna-Lakes Country PPC Riding Association because its members were hesitant about merging with their rural mountain ridings to form a massive regional EDA. 

The fact that Bernier and PPC HQ would go so low as to use political measures to bar well-intentioned PPC members from participating in internal party matters is disheartening. While Maxime Bernier continues to tour the country to gain new supporters, he effectively ignores the ones who got him to the level where he is now. Maxime Bernier’s PPC is supposed to be the party of working-class conservative-minded Canadians, holding the Ottawa elites to account above all else. It’s ironic because that’s essentially what Maxime Bernier and the PPC HQ have turned themselves into. Populist elites.

If Maxime Bernier and the PPC HQ ran Canada like they run the party, it would essentially be an authoritarian regime: directives would flow from the top to the bottom; those who raise questions about the regime would be silenced and alienated, all while Maxime Bernier travels the country to shake hands with every Canadian holding an “F**k Trudeau” flag. 

Anthony Zambito

5 responses to “Bernier And PPC HQ Need To Stop Stifling the Party’s Grassroots If They Want To Be Taken Seriously”

  1. Liam Randall says:

    Not condemning a certain career oligarch who used to be a PPC star whose name rhymes "air hick loam" for one is a strike against Max for sure.

  2. Louise Kostyniuk says:

    I knew there was something wrong with Bernier and the PPC right from his temper tantrum. It didn’t feel right, like from a woman’s point of view meeting someone who creeps you right out.
    I looked at some of his history and what issues he had voted on before and he seemed liked every other politician. What was worse yet was how he handled himself after losing the leadership race. The same as Turdie he is a spoiled rich kid in a suit.

  3. Jack Reynolds says:

    I was among the first 22 Founding members of the PPC on Day One.
    .
    I quit primarily because Bernier’s policy of not funding Ukraine defence, is equivalent to handing a victory to Putin..
    .
    Others have their own reasons, but it was clear to me that adopting a policy that would alienated half of the few remaining PPC members WAS A REALLY STUPID MOVE … 100% pure laine Quebec Isolationism.
    .

  4. Mathieu Saint-Jean says:

    I am Mathieu St-Jean the Coordonator of the PPC for the Ottawa Capitol (newly in post) and Outaouais-Laurentides, former Gatineau candidate 2021 and from what I know is that.

    We are closing some EDA not to get candidat out by their principles (except a few for obvious reason. Some of those EDA are closing because some administrators are missing in action or its because of the lack of volunteers in some districts to maintain the EDA. That’s why we focus on regional EDA in some cases. But the plan is when enough volunteers in a district, those volunteers can open back their district EDA.

    For the second part. The constitution of the party. From knowledge of it, its not being rebuked. The HQ want to make a presentation of one in the futur and we are all in accord on that. The PPC need one to been more democratic.

    Don’t forget it’s all voluntering based and it’s slow to perform when you have a lack of active volunteers or when People’s want results now.

    And I am happy to tell you that we are working on a National convention.

    I’ll be most happy to speak with anyone’s who wants to make politics different and grow this party strong.

  5. js says:

    The PPC is nothing but a grift.
    Bernier pays himself $104K/yr on top of his MP Pension.

    • He spent most of 2020/21 and took a 1 month "Vacation" there in ’22. Vacation from what, Tweeting?
    • His "Star candidate", Marc Emery is a Groomer who was notorious in Vancouver for being a creep along with his wife.
      That’s why they moved to Toronto. Articles were coming out and victims were breaking their silence.
    • One of his candidates (Nicholas Pereira) who he hangs out with a lot calls himself a "Semen Retention Soldier".
    • When he goes to BC, he hangs out with Odessa Orlewicz who was pals with Allison Mack of the NXIVM sex cult
      Check the name "Odessa Munroe" on the IMDB.
    • The PPC ran House flippers and Immigration consultants in BC and likely other provinces.

    Then of course Bernier’s history of dating an outlaw biker chick and sending $500 million to Haiti, some of which ended up in the Clintons pockets.
    Oh and he praised China during speeches.

    He’s a skeezeball.