New Blue Party Of Ontario Is The First Party To Have A Full Slate of Candidates
In a somewhat ironic development, the only political party that took the time to democratically elected its MPP nominees is also the first party to have a full slate of candidates in place for the Ontario provincial election.
The New Blue Party of Ontario, started by Cambridge MPP Belinda Karahalios and her husband Jim Karahalios (who is the party leader), in spite of only being officially registered in January 2021 beat Doug Ford’s PC Party to having a full slate of candidates.
This is a significant achievement, not only because the New Blue Party had to develop party infrastructure and EDAs at the same time the recruitment process was started to find candidates, but also because it was all done democratically. If a riding had more than one person wanting to run for the New Blue Party their local EDA had an election, as required by their party constitution, which happened in many ridings across Ontario.
Not many Ontarians are aware, but the major provincial parties have increasingly been appointing MPP candidates to run for office, cutting out party members from having a say on who will represent them during the election, and potentially in office.
The PCs have become famous for this, going so far as to eject elected PC MPPs from caucus, like Belinda Karahalios for voting against Bill 195, in order to appoint Ford loyalists as the nominees for ridings in the next election.
Appointed PC nominee for Cambridge Brian Riddell.
The NDP also recently did this with MPP Paul Miller who they publicly declared would not be allowed to seek office with the NDP again before simply appointing a replacement nominee in Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.
Although the New Blue Party is verifiably the first party to put together a full slate of candidates and get them all verified on the ballot the legacy media like CTV news is ignoring them, instead of reporting days after New Blue had a full slate that only the PCs and NDP have full slates.
Instead, the legacy media reports on the Ontario Party, which does not have a full slate of candidates, is not well organized, likely won’t exist after the 2022 election, and rather tellingly is not running on a platform to tax the federally-subsidized legacy media like the New Blue Party wants to do.
It feels like a non-threatening third-party option is being highlighted over New Blue because New Blue may actually pose a real challenge for the Ontario political establishment, so by focusing on the Ontario Party the legacy media can try and unfairly discredit the alternative conservative vote.
Regardless the evidence on the ground and in polling shows that the New Blue Party will be a real force in the 2022 Ontario provincial election, as well as afterward, seeing as the Karahalios’ and their supporters have made it clear they are going to be in provincial politics for the long haul.