Juno News - Independent candidate denied by PC party wins landmark victory

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 welcome back to the andrew lawton show well even though the provincial election is behind us one

00:00:13.960 thing we know is that there was a significant lack of enthusiasm in voter turnout we saw this

00:00:19.860 across the board depressed voter turnout a lot of people in the media have been wringing their

00:00:24.160 hands wondering what that means is it just general political complacency or is it dissatisfaction

00:00:29.700 with the options that were on offer for the most part we saw a lot of pcs get re-elected we saw a

00:00:35.920 little bit of a change in some liberal and ndpc it's not a huge overwhelming change in the numbers

00:00:42.100 doug ford went into the election with the majority came out of it with a majority but one of the

00:00:46.980 interesting stories to emerge was in a riding not far from where i live haldeman norfolk in southwestern

00:00:52.800 ontario where an independent mpp bobby ann brady won very handily above the pcs she is the executive

00:01:01.320 assistant or was the executive assistant to toby barrett a longtime progressive conservative mpp

00:01:06.900 but ultimately ran as an independent and got elected as an independent which as we'll talk

00:01:12.300 about it is not an easy thing to do in canadian politics she joins me now bobby ann good to talk

00:01:17.740 to you uh congratulations and thanks for coming on today oh thanks for having me andrew so let's

00:01:23.620 just set the stage here for people in ontario and even outside of ontario who are tuning in

00:01:28.560 you worked with a longtime progressive conservative mpp how on earth did you end up running against the

00:01:35.320 pcs and running as an independent well i've i've been the riding association president locally for over

00:01:42.780 20 years and um i knew that toby was not going to seek re-election um in 2022 in fact he sat down with

00:01:51.540 the premier's office after the 2018 election and told them that this would be his last run so come

00:01:59.020 january i started going to the party and asking you know when can we have a nomination night keep in mind

00:02:04.500 uh nomination nights can no longer be had unless you have uh the blessing from the party and i was told i

00:02:10.500 had to wait that made sense you know covet had reared its ugly head again and um you know i

00:02:16.260 understood so february i go back and they tell me the same story march i go back same story again and

00:02:22.260 that's when i went to toby and said toby you need to make a phone call because something's very wrong

00:02:27.000 here so toby picked up the phone and he called the premier and keep in mind that all outgoing mpp's

00:02:33.660 were afforded uh one of two things they could either appoint their successor or they could host a

00:02:38.880 nomination night so the premier did say to toby um you know who would you appoint and toby said well

00:02:44.120 i would appoint bobby and brady my ea of 23 years the premier said okay well i'll get back to you and

00:02:49.940 he did get back a while later and he said we won't be appointing bobby and brady and uh we will

00:02:56.000 appoint uh the mayor of haldeman county and toby said i i cannot condone that i'm sorry mr premier but

00:03:02.940 i cannot condone that and largely that's because the mayor of haldeman county has worked against us

00:03:09.380 for several years as conservatives um he's never held a pc membership he's never come to an event

00:03:15.100 he's never donated and he ran federally for the liberal party so we don't recognize him as a

00:03:21.140 conservative um so we went back to the party and we said you know the premier has said he's going to

00:03:26.180 appoint to the mayor of haldeman county and we can't condone this please afford us a nomination

00:03:31.140 if the premier wanted me to you know run off against his candidate in a nomination i would

00:03:38.120 have had no problem doing so and the proof is in the fact that i put my name on the ballot for the

00:03:42.480 general election and we were told we could not hold a nomination and that's when i decided you know

00:03:49.080 what democracy is being sidelined here as the writing association president how do i attract and

00:03:54.320 retain volunteers to sit around the pc board table when the single most important decision that they 0.98

00:04:01.260 can make every four years is taken out of their hands so i said we have to challenge this and we

00:04:05.820 have to do it um so that democracy is upheld and that's how i became an independent candidate

00:04:11.320 i know oftentimes when people have been in your situation and then run as an independent or

00:04:17.740 with a less major party they're doing it really because they want to make a point

00:04:21.940 or maybe they just want to spite the party that scorned them and actually try to be a spoiler

00:04:26.960 on the ballot did you go into this thinking that you had a shot at winning or were you just trying

00:04:31.900 to make that point and make things a little difficult for the pcs nope i went in it believing

00:04:37.740 that i could win and the reason that i believed i could win is because of my 23 years of experience

00:04:45.760 working for for toby all of the people that i had helped thousands and thousands of people that i

00:04:51.280 had helped i have a good reputation in the community and then of course my 20 years as the pc writing

00:04:56.820 association president local conservatives um knew the work i had been doing and and knew or felt that

00:05:04.300 i should have been the candidate so i remember um you know somebody saying to me in the first week you

00:05:10.340 know what do you think you're doing and i said i'm going to win and um i believed that i wholeheartedly

00:05:16.020 believed that the team that i had around me surrounding me that we could we could pull it

00:05:21.200 off and we certainly did you know if there were a candidate that were more conservative because i

00:05:28.740 mean going off of the issues that you flagged with the candidate the pcs fielded would you have still

00:05:34.200 done this or was your fight you're seeking the uh candidacy or being the candidate as an independent

00:05:40.240 was that really more about that fundamental idea that it's the members and the voters that should

00:05:44.500 have a say not the party absolutely um i go back to the the idea that how do we attract volunteers

00:05:52.500 to the pc party when the grassroots voice no longer matters and it's something that i've been

00:05:58.520 seen that i've seen over the past uh you know few years where the grassroots opinion doesn't really

00:06:04.440 matter anymore um the decisions are being made by one two three people and that is wrong uh you can't

00:06:12.680 take the electorate you can't take your grassroots their vote their money their time you can't take

00:06:18.720 that for granted you can't take advantage of people and expect to be continually rewarded

00:06:23.900 looking forward now i mean obviously you've been working for a pc mpp for as you've said 23 years

00:06:33.140 is your intention to continue serving out your term for the next four years as an independent or

00:06:39.080 would you join the pc caucus so that's a very uh that's an interesting question one that i was asked

00:06:45.060 quite a bit on the campaign trail i would say two things um first and foremost i will not rejoin the

00:06:51.360 pc party until they get um their house in order um you got to do some cleanup and you've got to make sure

00:06:58.720 that the respect is restored uh we need to be a respectful party and secondly i won't i won't walk

00:07:06.640 through the front door of the pc family home once it is clean until the people of haldeman norfolk tell

00:07:12.440 me that it's time to do so so that's not a decision i'd make on my own it's a decision that the people

00:07:18.720 of haldeman norfolk would have to make with me do you see yourself in a way as part of the opposition

00:07:25.760 and i don't mean that in the sense of you being a demagogue but you actually using your place as an

00:07:30.640 independent not under the power of any party whip to hold the pcs to account in the legislature

00:07:35.840 absolutely and i believe that there is no monopoly on a good idea so if the pcs have a good idea then

00:07:43.900 i will support it of course i will if the liberals have a good idea or the ndp have a good idea i can

00:07:49.180 support them as well and it gives me an opportunity to represent haldeman norfolk in a way that it's never

00:07:55.500 being represented before you know let's be honest we see a lot of good ideas pass through um you know

00:08:02.140 the chambers and and they're passed up because of party politics and we have to stop that um all

00:08:08.540 parties have to stop that because it's not good for you and i as the taxpayer um you know i think

00:08:14.140 there's just a lot of uh a lack of decorum in the house these days there's there's a lot of anger and we

00:08:20.540 would just get to such a better deal as that for you know for the taxpayer if we could you know work

00:08:26.940 together instead of just continually worrying about party lines just looking at that party dimension i

00:08:34.300 i mentioned in the intro here that independents have a very very difficult time getting elected

00:08:40.220 in provincial politics in ontario in federal politics maybe you'll have an exceptional case

00:08:45.420 where someone will do fairly well but they still fall short of victory you did it you crossed the

00:08:50.300 finish line and obviously nothing is a given you had to work for every vote you had a team around you

00:08:55.740 but you did something that's very difficult to do in canada and i'm wondering if you think that things

00:09:00.220 are changing and there is more of a regard for independence or do you think your case was really

00:09:05.500 just the perfect circumstances the perfect storm at this time that you were able to win with i hope it's

00:09:13.420 changing um you know as much as it's great the hulgman norfolk made history and and we did it the

00:09:19.980 old-fashioned way people going out into their community and talking to their friends neighbors

00:09:24.300 relatives because running as an independent uh the odds are really stock you know stacked against you

00:09:29.740 um you can't spend money you can't raise money until the writ is dropped you can't do anything

00:09:34.860 and in other campaigns had weeks weeks on top of me right they were out there already knocking on doors

00:09:40.380 putting up signs uh as soon as the writ dropped i had to wait two and a half weeks for my signs

00:09:45.500 so i really do hope that this is is changed because one of the things that i said on the

00:09:50.460 campaign trail over and over again is you know what i haven't seen anyone be brave um you know be

00:09:56.140 brave stand up do the right thing and you know the people of halloween norfolk uh behind me did the

00:10:02.940 brave thing and i kept saying to them you know what courage can be contagious and i really think

00:10:08.860 that if haldeman norfolk little old halloween norfolk can send you know bobby and brady to the ontario

00:10:14.540 legislature as an independent we can serve as hope that look you know what you don't have to be taken

00:10:19.340 for granted you don't have to go to the ballot box and tick off the box that all you know the major

00:10:25.500 parties expect you're going to tick off you can make your own decision you can vote for that guy or gal

00:10:32.140 who represents you um you know at the community level and i really do hope that um this campaign

00:10:40.540 will serve as hope for folks right across our nation because one of the things that folks have

00:10:45.580 been saying to me over the past three years when they call into the office is bobby and we're worried

00:10:51.900 they're not quite sure what they're worried about but then they follow that statement up with

00:10:56.140 we've lost hope they've grown cynical of leaders they've grown cynical of governance and rightfully

00:11:01.820 so much of what we've seen you know uh shows that the government no longer respects us and we we are

00:11:10.380 the taxpayer their money it's not their money it's our money and i think governments and political

00:11:16.460 parties often lose sight of that one thing i saw in looking at your campaign from afar was how many

00:11:24.140 long-time party stalwarts you had backing you up so it wasn't just you and toby like you had a lot

00:11:30.140 of people that had worked for years and years in some cases in some pretty key positions within

00:11:34.860 the progressive conservative party that said nope we're we're going with the independent this time

00:11:39.180 around yeah i had lots of pcs behind me especially the ones that i had worked with you know between

00:11:45.900 toby and i that's 50 years of service and so a lot of folks who respected toby and said you know

00:11:51.660 toby was disrespected in this process and so they surrounded us but the other um interesting

00:11:57.660 aspect of the campaign was that we had liberals and ndps who came to our campaign and worked on

00:12:04.380 it as well because they they realized they're good community-minded people sure they may have worked

00:12:09.740 against us on past campaigns but they're good community-minded people who said no this isn't right

00:12:16.060 this is not the way democracy should be done and they joined my campaign and you know there was an

00:12:22.220 instance last week where one of the biggest liberals in in haldeman norfolk was standing in my campaign

00:12:28.300 office alongside one of the biggest ndp members and it was a rainy bliss blustery day and and toby was

00:12:35.100 in there as well and and i looked at toby and i said you feel like you're in the twilight zone and everybody

00:12:39.820 had a good laugh but um you know i i truly believe that um you know it was it was really a a an effort

00:12:49.260 of all of us uh in haldeman norfolk who were just not okay with democracy being sidelined and they had

00:12:56.140 just had enough and they said we got to stand up to this bobby ann brady the independent mpp elect

00:13:03.340 for haldeman norfolk in ontario uh congratulations again and thanks so much for coming on today thank you

00:13:08.940 so much thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north

00:13:14.380 at www.tnc.news

Juno News - June 10, 2022

Independent candidate denied by PC party wins landmark victory

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