By: Gregory Staley
Written On: 2022-01-06
Many Conservatives in Ontario have become concerned over the emergence of the many different right-wing parties that have recently arrived on the political scene – it has many anxious that these new parties will split the vote on the right.
Conservatives in Ontario are asking the question – why can’t we just all get along?
Derek Sloan has done a lot of questionable things politically over the last year. During the 2021 Federal election, Mr. Sloan decided to leave Ontario and his riding of Hastings-Lennox and Addington after being removed from the Conservative Party of Canada to start his own federal party in Alberta.
Not only did Sloan not get his federal party registered in time (it’s still not registered), Sloan ran in the Conservative stronghold of Banff-Airdrie. There, Sloan was defeated by a landslide, receiving just 2015 votes of the 76,876 votes cast in the riding.
In comparison, the Conservative candidate who won in Banff-Airdrie, Blake Richards, garnered 43,677 votes for a staggering 56.8% of the vote.
Sloan’s decision to leave his riding of Hastings-Lennox and Addington had other potential consequences as well. It may have helped the Conservatives to secure a victory in that riding – had he remained in his home riding, the battle for Hastings-Lennox and Addington would have likely been much more competitive.
Just months after his failed federal election campaign – Sloan has decided to get involved in Ontario’s provincial politics – becoming the leader of the Ontario party. The Ontario Party has almost no brand recognition but nonetheless has MPP Rick Nicholls on board – the same Nicholls that said his removal from the Ontario PC party was a “forced retirement” and when asked what’s next in life, said that he may “become a government lobbyist.”
In a CBC article, Nicholls said “he is currently helping the Ontario party with policy development, but hasn’t decided yet if he’ll run again in the next election”
When giving his reasoning for joining the Ontario party to Rebel News, Sloan said “my federal party is still not approved by elections Canada so that’s disappointing but the fact is that there’s always an opportunity to fight and right now we have the next provincial election in the country is going to be in Ontario this coming June and it’s absolutely critical you know, that we’re fighting on that front.”
What makes Derek Sloan’s decision to get involved with the Ontario party particularly perplexing, is that just days before his interview with Rebel News he had told IPolitics that he was “certainly open to” working with the other political parties.
Sloan is leader of the Ontario party – but doesn’t know if he’ll run as a candidate or “just help”
What’s equally disconcerting is that Sloan told iPolitics on December 17th that “it’s too soon to say if he’ll run as an Ontario Party candidate or just help with the campaign” adding that “he joined the Ontario Party over the OFP because he was approached to help with it and because it’s already registered.”
So the logical question to ask is – if Sloan isn’t committed to the idea of running as the leader of the Ontario Party and his reasoning for not getting involved with the Ontario First Party is that they aren’t registered, why wouldn’t he reach out to a party like New Blue and throw his support behind them?
Well, if we’re to believe Derek Sloan, it’s because “it became clear that various kinds of movements and factions were not… you know satisfied with the status quo and they wanted a movement that was definitively pro-family, pro-freedom” and he was convinced to be involved in that.
Here’s the issue – Belinda and Jim Karahalios of the New Blue party both have a track record of being pro-freedom and pro-family. After all, Belinda Karahalios was removed from the Ontario PC party for her opposition to Bill-195, also known as the lockdown bill.
At the time, Belinda Karahalios issued a news release that said that Bill-195 is an “unnecessary overreach on our parliamentary democracy” and that the bill transferred away the “ability for Ontario MPPs to consider, debate, and vote on how emergency powers are used on Ontarians.”
Jim Karahalios reached out numerous times to Sloan regarding New Blue – meetings with Sloan always fell through
It’s not as though Jim Karahalios, the leader of the New Blue party wasn’t open to the idea of working with Derek Sloan. Mr. Karahalios told Diverge Media that he reached out to Sloan to discuss the possibility of him working with the New Blue via text on September 20th and 21st, October 12th, 13th, 14th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 21st and on October 25th.
Mr. Karahalios also called Mr. Sloan in and around Nov. 1-10 after the first meeting for the Liberty Coalition was cancelled and on December 12th.
According to Mr. Karahalios, every time he tried to set up a meeting to discuss New Blue, Mr. Sloan would respond by saying that he’d “let him know” but no meeting would ever materialize.
One would rightfully wonder if Mr. Sloan was avoiding the conversation altogether.
It wouldn’t be so disheartening if this was the whole story but it appears that Mr. Sloan has been hinting to voters via email correspondence that Mr. Karahalios hasn’t reached out to him!
Diverge Media obtained email communications from a protected source showing that Sloan’s team told a voter concerned about vote splitting in Ontario that “Derek has always been willing to work with anyone fighting towards similar goals” and that he is “always happy to take a phone call from the New Blue.”
His team even added that Derek reached out to Mr. Karahalios after he was elected the leader of the Ontario Party but that his “overtures to work together went unanswered.”
When we add in Sloan’s comments to Rebel News reporter Tamara Ugolini, that the Ontario Party platform is going to be developed in consultation with the candidates (we don’t know who those candidates are and Rick Nicholls has not committed to running in the upcoming election) and that the parties website doesn’t it appear to contain a party constitution we are left asking the question – what is the Ontario party really about?
It would seem that Mr. Sloan can’t make up his mind about his place in Canadian politics and that he is more than content to split the vote on the right to bolster his political reputation. It’s too bad that Mr. Sloan just can’t play nice.
Something smells wretched in Ontarian politics.
Diverge Media has reached out to Derek Sloan twice for comment but received no reply. We will update this story if we receive comment.
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