London candidates for the small-c conservative upstart New Blue Party made their pitch to voters Monday evening, with election day little more than two weeks away.
About 70 supporters and members of the public gathered at the Byron Legion for a meet-and-greet with New Blue candidates from the three city ridings and Elgin-Middlesex-London.
“We need to start voting for character. When the rubber meets the road, we need leaders who will follow through and do what they say,” Tommy Caldwell, New Blue candidate for London North Centre, said.
The New Blue Party has candidates in all 124 ridings provincewide. The party is vying for votes on the right of the political spectrum, but also looking to attract voters who are tired of the status quo, Caldwell said.
“The establishment parties work for themselves and each other,” he said, adding MPPs from the big three “serve the party above, not the people below.”
Among other campaign promises, New Blue is pledging to end all remaining COVID-19 mandates, take down wind turbines to reduce electricity prices and drop the HST rate from 13 per cent to 10 per cent.
Opposition to rolling public health restrictions and successive lockdowns during the pandemic loomed large in the candidates’ prepared remarks.
“Families, individuals and small businesses have the right to determine what’s right for them. We must ensure that autonomy is never taken away again,” Kris Hunt, New Blue candidate in London West, said to rousing applause.
Matt Millar, the New Blue candidate in Elgin-Middlesex-London, called the Progressive Conservative government’s pandemic restrictions that kept children out of school and people away from their loved ones “extreme.”
New Blue was co-founded by Jim and Belinda Karahalios.
Belinda Karahalios was elected as the Progressive Conservative MPP in Cambridge in 2018, but was kicked out of the Tory caucus after two years for voting against her party’s COVID-19 emergency act legislation.
She founded New Blue with her husband, the party’s leader.
The party is not the only new party appearing on the ballot for the first time this provincial election.
The Ontario Party, founded by former MP and Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Derek Sloan, has candidates in 105 ridings this election, including all 10 in the London region.
New Blue candidates in London region
Kris Hunt, West London
Tommy Caldwell, London North Center
Adriana Medina, London Fanshawe
Matt Millar, Elgin-Middlesex-London
Connie Oldenburger, Oxford
David Barnwell, Lambton-Kent-Middlesex
Rhonda Jubenville, Chatham-Kent-Leamington
Keith Benn, Sarnia-Lambton
Bob Hosken, Perth-Wellington
Matt Kennedy, Huron-Bruce