Smaller Ontario parties, Independents looking to score wins in snap election

Apart from the four major parties you're familiar with 16 parties and 41 independents will be looking to win a riding in the Ontario election.

It's a rare but not impossible feat.

In Ontario's last election in 2022, a lone independent candidate, Bobbi Ann Brady, catpured the seat of Haldimand-Norfolk. And this year, she's running again. According to her website, Brady became the first female independent MPP ever elected in this province and the first to be elected as an independent without previously winning with a major party since 1905.

In this year's snap winter election, triggered early by PC Leader Doug Ford, more than three dozen independents will be looking to the same.

Remember, in Ontario's system you vote for who you want to be your local MPP, not who you want to be premier. That means smaller parties that don't often have the reach or resources of the major parties (the PCs, NDP, Liberals and Greens) will still often get candidates onto your ballot.

The best way to see who is running in your riding is use the candidate search on Elections Ontario's website.

New Blue party fields more than 100 candidates

The New Blue Party was the most successful party not to win a seat in the last provincial election, and has candidates in 108 of the 124 ridings this year. One of them, Belinda Karahalios, was a Progressive Conservative MPP before she was removed from the party caucus for opposing its COVID-19 emergency measures.

She and her husband, Jim Karahalios, then launched a new party. They say Ford hasn't done enough to cut taxes.

"There's never been any tax relief that they've put in place, and Doug Ford continues to promise that every election cycle," Jim Karaholios said in an interview last week.

"And then when he gets another mandate, he never provides permanent tax relief." 

The party wants to cut the HST from 13 per cent to 10. 

Karahalios says "cleaning house at Queen's Park" is a priority for the New Blue Party.

"Because whether it's PCs or Liberals, all we see is cronyism, scandals after scandals, and no one that's respecting taxpayers in this province," he said. 

The New Blue Party received nearly 130,000 votes in 2022, the most of any party that didn't win a seat. Second best among those parties was the Ontario Party, founded in 2018, which took home nearly 85,000 votes.

Ousted NDP, PC MPPs running as independents

Voters in some Ontario ridings will also see a few familiar names running as independents.

In Hamilton, Sarah Jama, a housing and disability activist who won Hamilton Centre for the NDP in a byelection in March 202, will be running as an independent. In October 2023, Jama was ousted from the party after she made a statement in support of Palestinians following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that led to the current Israel-Hamas war. Jama called for an immediate ceasefire and an "end to all occupation of Palestinian land." 

Michael Mantha, who was removed from the NDP caucus in August 2023 after allegations of workplace misconduct, is also running again in Algoma-Manitoulin.

Mantha promises to disrupt conventional party dynamics and could potentially split votes in a riding that has elected New Democrats and Liberal candidates for the past four decades.

Meanwhile, Vincent Ke, a Toronto MPP who resigned from the PC caucus and sat as an independent over allegations he's linked to election interference by China, is running again in Don Valley North. 

Ke's team, in a news release this week, maintained he's done nothing wrong. "He has never been charged or convicted of any crime. While allegations were made against him, there is no evidence to support those false and defamatory claims," the release said.

None of the Above party pushing for electoral change

Greg Vezina, leader of the None of the Above Direct Democracy Party, wants to see referendums on main issues, saying he'd push for a "direct democracy" system similar to Switzerland's. It's one of the party's main priorities

"In Ontario, we have no say, absolutely no control once we elect a government," Vezina said last week.

But he says he knows it's tough for smaller parties like his to come up with big wins.

"We've got two chances of winning: slim and none," Vezina said. 

The Ontario Party and New Blue Party won a combined 4.5 per cent of the total vote in 2022, while the remaining parties that didn't win a seat, including None of the Above, combined to receive 0.5 per cent.

Still, Vezina says he hopes his party can win enough votes to move the needle on key issues.

The Ontario election takes place Thursday.