MP AITCHISON WILL FACE FOUR NEW FEDERAL ELECTION OPPONENTS
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
PARRY SOUND-MUSKOKA — It’ll take a week after the election call for the slate of local federal candidates to be sorted out.
But by at Monday we’ll know who MP Scott Aichison will face in his re-election bid Monday, Sept. 20.
He’ll be up against a new line-up of party challengers other than the four he faced two years ago.
Out are Liberal Trisha Cowie, the Greens’ Gord Miller and New Democrat Tom Young.
They’ll be replaced by the Greens’ Marc Mantha, New Democrat Heather Hay, Jim Tole of the People’s Party of Canada — and a Liberal to be determined this weekend.
All of the above will be first-timers on the ballot.
For various reasons including work, time commitments and health the 2019 opponents who ran against Conservative Aichison are opting to let others run in their places.
However, all are expected to provide support for their parties on the campaign trail.
And as the pandemic has changed Canada since 2019, so too will it change the 2021 election.
Mantha is the first Métis to run and Hay the first LGBTQ2S+ person. Both are Gravenhurst residents.
Tole is a retired Hamilton-Wentworth science teacher who most recently for six months before the last election taught math at a Canadore College remote site in Parry Sound. He says he has lived in the riding since 2017.
Patrick Dempsey, chair of the Liberal electoral district association, said they expect to announce their candidate this weekend.
“Because of the pandemic it’s a bit different.”
He said when Cowie advised she would not run a third time, due to work, that they have recruited “someone local.”
“We went out of our way to make sure the party didn’t parachute in a candidate.”
Due to the lateness the Liberals have “expedited” the vetting process.
The Greens say in a release that Mantha is a “business development consultant with a green conscience.”
“Raised as a northern boy, he spent years in Toronto building his career before moving to Muskoka to build a tiny home and right-size his life.”
A candidate for Gravenhurst town council in 2018, he says he’s active in community volunteering. He’s on the board of Legacy for Alex, a youth mental health not for profit and is president of the Ryde Community Co-op. He also writes and narrates a community radio program on The Bay 88.7FM called ‘My Sustainable Life, about “rethinking communities, how we live and to question.”
A strong supporter of the Moon River Métis Council and Community, he has taken on seeking out vulnerable community members by regularly travelling the vast catchments of the Moon River Métis much of which lies within the riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka.
“In my lifetime the lack of ongoing continuity between the dominant parties has never resulted in a sum total improvement in the quality of life for seniors, families and indigenous communities.
“My friends and neighbours across all party lines feel the same. I will collaborate with anyone who wants to improve our quality of life. I can only do so much at the household and community level.
“We now need an MP in Ottawa to echo the voices of our communities to mitigate the climate crisis. To develop prosperous local and regional economies and healthy, diverse, inclusive communities.
“We are inherently green. So let’s vote that way.”
Hay says in an NDP release today that “she/her” is a human rights activist who has built strong networks and communities locally and nationally.
The coordinator for Elder Abuse Prevention Muskoka is committed to creating a poverty-free and age-friendly Muskoka.
Hay’s human rights work began during the 1980s as a founding member of Out North in Yellowknife.
More recently she served as president of Fierté Canada Pride, the national association of Canadian Pride organizations coordinating conferences and events to “elevate and empower underrepresented voices.”
After 20 years of community building and teaching in communities throughout the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, Hay returned to Gravenhurst and built a home on the family farm.
With a BA in education and she/her wrote a weekly column providing support to seniors and caregivers called ‘Caring through Ages and Stages.’
Hay is “excited by the New Democrats’ plan to tackle the climate emergency, create good jobs and believes in sustainable communities with affordable housing. And looks forward to raising these and other issues throughout the campaign and sharing how the NDP will build back better.”
New Democrats plan a series of campaign meet and greets and starting Aug. 25 Hay will host zoom meet-ups Wednesdays at 7 p.m.
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