New Blue Party of Ontario leader speaks in Sarnia

Article content

Sarnia-Lambton was an early supporter of the New Blue Party of Ontario, its leader said Saturday during a campaign visit to the riding.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

New Blue Party of Ontario leader speaks in Sarnia Back to video

Jim Karahalios, who founded the party in late 2020 with his wife, Belinda Karahalios, a Cambridge MPP kicked out of the Progressive Conservative Party earlier that year for voting against a bill extending some provincial pandemic emergency orders, spoke to about 100 people Saturday afternoon at the Sarnia Library Theatre.

There was support in Sarnia “right out of the gate,” Karahalios said.

“It has consistently been one of the highest locations, outside of Cambridge, where we get signatures and then donors,” he said. “There’s a good group here that got the riding registered right away.”

Keith Benn, the party’s candidate in Sarnia-Lambton, said voters in the region were ““anxious to join.”

Karahalios spoke at a Chatham event earlier Saturday and then went from Sarnia to a campaign appearance in Mount Brydges with the party’s Lambton—Kent—Middlesex candidate, David Barnwell.

Karahalios said the party was the first to have candidates nominated in all 124 of Ontario’s ridings and held a campaign kickoff in Cambridge attended by more than 550 people.

“For a party that started a year and a half ago, we’re pleasantly surprised,” Karahalios said.

He urged the crowd in Sarnia to help in the days leading up to the June 2 election by putting up signs and canvassing door-to-door.

“The media’s not going to make it easy for us,” Karahalios said. “Right now, they’re ignoring us – pretending like we don’t exist.”

But he said the party has “the platform to deliver the message.”

Along with promising to roll back provincial pandemic measures, Karahalios said it will “get critical race theory right out of our schools,” give tax credits to families making alternative school arrangements, offer choice in health care, clear the backlog in health procedures and take down Ontario’s wind turbines to lower electricity rates.

Other party promises include eliminating “Doug Ford’s industrial carbon tax,” pushing for a three per cent reduction in the HST and eliminating government subsidies for political parties, he said.

“Ontarians know there’s something wrong beyond COVID and lockdown mandates,’ Karahalios said.

“I know that if we stick to our values and principles, and keep moving forward and keep working hard together, we’ll continue to change the course,” he said.

Benn warned supporters Saturday about claims a vote for the New Blue Party will only split the conservative vote.

“We are, in fact, the only party on the conservative side of the political spectrum that is going to be on your ballot,” he said.

“We are not splitting the conservative vote – we are rallying the conservative vote.”

Earlier in the week, a Leger/Postmedia poll gauging voting intentions put support for the New Blue Party among respondents at two per cent. The Progressive Conservatives were in the lead with 36 per cent, followed by the Liberals with 29 per cent, NDP with 25 per cent and Green Party with five per cent.

pmorden@postmedia.com