SCOOP — “Pathetic.” “The demise of democracy.” “Democracy here really is about the nomination more so than the election itself.”
That’s how some are describing the Progressive Conservative’s nomination process in Haldimand—Norfolk, which handed an uncontested spot on the ticket — for the second time — to a local mayor.
This time, the nomination went to Amy Martin. She’s the Norfolk County mayor — the county’s “biggest fan,” she says — who was just installed as the chair of the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus. For the mayor, it’s no small climb: she’s tasked with snagging a historically blue turf from Bobbi Ann Brady, whose upset and style has drawn the ire of Premier Ford (“You won’t have a job next election,” he told her last April).
Martin, who was named as the candidate in late November, said her nomination “followed a rigorous process conducted” by the local riding association to “ensure the most suitable candidate would stand for election.” “I am deeply grateful for the association’s diligence in evaluating candidates and for their confidence in my ability to represent [the riding],” she wrote on Facebook.
But privately, a series of Facebook posts and leaked emails point to a murky process behind Martin’s appointment, which has led at least one riding association executive to quit and a wannabe candidate to speak out.
Here’s what happened:
SCOOP — “Pathetic.” “The demise of democracy.” “Democracy here really is about the nomination more so than the election itself.”
That’s how some are describing the Progressive Conservative’s nomination process in Haldimand—Norfolk, which handed an uncontested spot on the ticket — for the second time — to a local mayor.
This time, the nomination went to Amy Martin. She’s the Norfolk County mayor — the county’s “biggest fan,” she says — who was just installed as the chair of the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus. For the mayor, it’s no small climb: she’s tasked with snagging a historically blue turf from Bobbi Ann Brady, whose upset and style has drawn the ire of Premier Ford (“You won’t have a job next election,” he told her last April).
Martin, who was named as the candidate in late November, said her nomination “followed a rigorous process conducted” by the local riding association to “ensure the most suitable candidate would stand for election.” “I am deeply grateful for the association’s diligence in evaluating candidates and for their confidence in my ability to represent [the riding],” she wrote on Facebook.
But privately, a series of Facebook posts and leaked emails point to a murky process behind Martin’s appointment, which has led at least one riding association executive to quit and a wannabe candidate to speak out.
Here’s what happened:
SCOOP — “Pathetic.” “The demise of democracy.” “Democracy here really is about the nomination more so than the election itself.”
That’s how some are describing the Progressive Conservative’s nomination process in Haldimand—Norfolk, which handed an uncontested spot on the ticket — for the second time — to a local mayor.
This time, the nomination went to Amy Martin. She’s the Norfolk County mayor — the county’s “biggest fan,” she says — who was just installed as the chair of the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus. For the mayor, it’s no small climb: she’s tasked with snagging a historically blue turf from Bobbi Ann Brady, whose upset and style has drawn the ire of Premier Ford (“You won’t have a job next election,” he told her last April).
Martin, who was named as the candidate in late November, said her nomination “followed a rigorous process conducted” by the local riding association to “ensure the most suitable candidate would stand for election.” “I am deeply grateful for the association’s diligence in evaluating candidates and for their confidence in my ability to represent [the riding],” she wrote on Facebook.
But privately, a series of Facebook posts and leaked emails point to a murky process behind Martin’s appointment, which has led at least one riding association executive to quit and a wannabe candidate to speak out.
Here’s what happened:
In August, an internal memo from party president Michael Diamond launched the nomination process — requesting each riding “strike a candidate search committee and begin the process of reviewing potential candidates.” The ridings, according to the party’s rules, would be required to conduct a “diligent and exhaustive search” of wannabe candidates, culminating in a written report sent to the party.
It took a bit over two months for the local riding association to initiate that process. By early October, an email from association president Jeff Miller called on members to point the search group to “potential candidates who are passionate about advocating for our riding and dedicated to representing our values.”
“If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a candidate, please email your interest,” he wrote. “A committee member will be in touch.”
Only around one hundred members received the email, according to a source familiar with the process. “They were hoping that nobody would notice the email, so only Amy would apply, allowing them to say, ‘well, we appointed her because nobody else applied,’” the source charged.
Former federal riding association president Dustin Wakeford — who characterized the process as a “true subversion of democracy” — claimed he was one of those who didn’t receive the riding association’s email about wannabe candidates.
Wakeford had expressed interest in the nomination, though he ultimately chose not to submit his dossier because he suspected the outcome had already been decided. “That is a complete and utter fabrication to disguise their contempt for the democratic process,” Wakeford wrote in a Facebook post. “... The local party association is a decrepit and atrophied organization.”
Aside from Martin, at least three other potential candidates signalled interest in running — and the riding association’s membership, the source explained, nearly doubled “in anticipation of a nomination meeting.” The three include: former Haldimand mayor Ken Hewitt, the past candidate who has since been appointed to Ontario’s Land Tribunal; Kristal Chopp, Martin’s predecessor; and Albert Marshall, an entrepreneur who once sought to rival Leslyn Lewis for the federal nomination.
The party said the search committee “asked questions of the candidates and invited them to meet before submitting their names for vetting” — but in an interview, Chopp, who submitted a nomination package, denied that she was ever screened.
The four were scheduled for an interview at the start of November, each on the same day. Chopp says she and one other candidate, Hewitt, were unavailable and requested an alternative date. Hewitt couldn’t be reached to comment on this story. In an email to the four candidates, Miller wrote that the search committee would review their “CV and responses” and include their names, along with other interested individuals, in the recommendations forwarded to the party for further consideration.
In a separate email to a local member, Miller indicated that “all the candidates were unable to attend.” “The local search committee decided that all four individuals should have their names forwarded to the provincial search committee,” he wrote to Dave King. “The local search committee did their job. I will say it again, [we] referred all four names to the provincial search committee.”
“One of the four individuals who submitted their names was selected at that level,” he added.
Almost a month later, without notice, Martin would be announced as the candidate. “Supposedly, there was a search committee, but it was hardly a diligent or exhaustive process,” Chopp said, questioning the basis on which a decision was made when she and the rest weren’t interviewed. Chopp says they’ve “refused to disclose” what exactly was in a “package” of information sent to the party by the local search team about each candidate. “It seems like it was all orchestrated to ensure Amy was the only viable option,” she added.
Chopp, just like the rest, heard about Martin’s appointment through a press release. “There was never even a phone call, a thank you for putting your name forward. Nothing,” she said.
King — who described himself as a “concerned Conservative member”— was a supporter of Chopp and criticized the entire process. “I think they’re trying to pretend they had a proper selection process,” he said in a phone interview.
King sent multiple inquiries to Miller, seeking clarity around the process, but got no reply. “It appears that you are saying the general membership has no say or vote [on] who the selected will be [and that] the decision rests entirely with a chosen few, with no chance for the general membership to be aware of who the candidates are,” he wrote in response to Miller’s email.
However, Miller, he says, stopped by his house a month ago to go over the process. “He said he couldn’t answer some of my questions because he had signed a non-disclosure agreement,” King recalled. “He said they submitted all the candidates’ names to the provincial party, but he didn’t recommend anyone in particular.”
King intended to challenge Martin’s nomination, as per party protocol, but was told it was an appointment and couldn’t be contested. “They told me Premier Ford is allowed to appoint up to ten candidates directly. That’s how they got off the hook,” he explained.
But that isn’t what the party would say explicitly — though they didn’t use “nominated” or “appointed,” they said she was “announced” as the candidate. In her post, Martin claimed there was a “rigorous process” conducted by the association to select the “most suitable candidate.”
“The press release didn’t even use the word ‘appointed,’ but that’s exactly what it was,” Chopp countered. “There was no vetting process. The claim that it was rigorous is complete nonsense.”
A message from Mainstreet Research:
We believe strongly in the power of data to illuminate most any issue, but data is not enough. At Mainstreet Research, we have the experience and know how to harness the potential of data to deliver the insights that are critical to any business, political or public policy decision. Learn more.
It’s unclear who served on the local search committee, further clouding an already contentious process. King said Miller wouldn’t reveal who was on the committee, while one executive member, who quit over the process, said he was blinsided and “didn’t even know we had a nominating committee” in place at the time.
“As an executive member, I just resigned,” Mike Ramsey, who once served as Dunnville’s deputy mayor and as the riding association’s president, wrote on Facebook. “I can assure you there was a lot of interest, and I feel a fair and open nomination meeting and a vote could have happened.” He said the process was “poorly run” and that “some interested did not know at all about the nomination,” deriding Martin as a “Toronto appointed candidate.”
“This is now the third time we’ve not had a chance to vote for our candidate,” he wrote. “This is wrong and Ford knows it.”
In a phone interview, Ramsey said the entire process didn’t sit right with him. “I’m not someone who just walked off the street and decided to quit. I’ve been involved in this all my life,” he explained. Almost seven months ago, Ramsey was asked to sit on the riding association’s executive board once again. Since the Tories’ surprise defeat in the last election, it’s been nothing but turbulence for the riding association — the entire executive board had walked out in protest over the decision to appoint Ken Hewitt as the candidate.
“At one of the last meetings I attended — actually, the last one — they started going through the process of nominations,” Ramsey recalled. “I come from the old school. I tried to convey to the executive that I was tired of this process of appointing candidates. That’s both at the federal and provincial level.”
The meeting? All about Martin, if you ask Ramsey. “It was Amy, Amy, Amy,” he said. “I asked how they advertised the nomination process and they said they sent emails to the membership. I said you need to put it out on social media and you need to put it in local newspapers. I asked for a vote and I got approval on it but they never did it.”
“We never had a meeting after that,” he said.
At that point, Ramsey said he could “smell a rat.” The executive member revealed he made some phone calls to get clarity, but was told that the number of candidates who’ve expressed interest was a “secret.” “I’m on the executive. I should know how many have come forward,” he explained.
At that point, Ramsey reached out to the party’s regional representative, who gave him a bit more information. “I went over their heads,” he said, “but I think I had every right as an executive member.” “I said there hasn’t been a meeting since the last one in September and we’re not getting any updates. I asked when the nomination process would start,” Ramsey recounted. “He said it had already started.”
“Well, funny,” Ramsey told him, “I didn’t even know he had a nominating committee!”
“I said ‘do we have candidates?’ He said ‘yes, the local interview process will start.’ He gave me the answers and I felt comfortable but I knew that something was not lining up properly,” he recalled.
The phone call landed Ramsey in hot water as word got back to Miller that he was poking around. “He called me and started slapping my hands about calling the regional representative. I said I have every right to call and find out what the process is.”
That’s because Ramsey was the assumption that they would vet at the headquarters and then they’d be OKd for a nomination race. “There’s no way in heck that any of these people would fail the vetting process,” Ramsey said. “Something was up.”
Right before he learned of Martin’s appointment, Ramsey decided to quit. “[The riding association] are wonderful people. They’re trying and they’re doing their best. I didn’t quit because of them. I quit because the headquarters up there in Toronto, they’re overriding us. If they were so bent on making this decision, they should have come down and addressed the executive on it — they didn’t,” he said.
For many, it’s a case of election déjà vu. The party’s decision to appoint Hewitt as the candidate in the last election created a ripple of discontent in the traditional blue district, which ultimately helped Bobbi Ann Brady — the riding association’s former president and executive assistant to Toby Barrett — cruise to victory as an independent candidate.
At the time, Brady said Hewitt was a candidate “none of us as local Conservatives could condone.”
“They have done the exact same thing, again,” Brady, who is set to take on Martin, said. “They circumvented the nomination process — and they circumvented the nomination process, again. I call it the demise of democracy.”
In fact, Brady says she encouraged Chopp to run. “I was well aware and encouraged Kristal to do so as it is good for democracy,” she said. “From a riding perspective, having poeple interested is healthy. Kristal was open and honest and I thought it was courteous that she called me.”
Brady, meanwhile, isn’t surprised with Martin’s appointment. She says she’d orchestrated a campaign, as mayor, to sideline her. “The mayor has been campaigning against me from her mayoralty seat for the past six months, asking me not to go to meetings and having her team tell me that I’m uninvited to certain things,” Brady said. “The appointment is not a shock to me.”
Over in Haldimand, it’s the same. Last August, Brady was excluded from delegation meetings with cabinet ministers at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s conference because her presence would be “detrimental to the county.”
For Chopp, it’s part of a larger issue. “For the third time now, they have appointed a candidate of their choosing in Haldimand—Norfolk as opposed to having a democratic process and allowing the people to choose their own representative,” she said. “The joke has always been that you could basically put a monkey up for election as a Conservative and they would win. The province didn’t have to dedicate much time or resources to us because it was such a comfortable riding for them, and I think we are far behind the rest of the province as a result.”
Brady’s old boss and predecessor isn’t happy with Martin’s appointment either. “Yet another appointment is pathetic and people in this independent riding will work yet again and vote to show we will not be taken for granted,” Barrett wrote in a Facebook post. He hasn’t been too happy with Ford’s performance lately.
Meanwhile, it’s go, go, go for Martin. Though she’s still mayor, she’s planning to take an unpaid leave to “focus fully on campaigning and connecting with residents throughout the riding” once the writ is formally issued.
The party didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.
SCOOP — “Pathetic.” “The demise of democracy.” “Democracy here really is about the nomination more so than the election itself.”
That’s how some are describing the Progressive Conservative’s nomination process in Haldimand—Norfolk, which handed an uncontested spot on the ticket — for the second time — to a local mayor.
This time, the nomination went to Amy Martin. She’s the Norfolk County mayor — the county’s “biggest fan,” she says — who was just installed as the chair of the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus. For the mayor, it’s no small climb: she’s tasked with snagging a historically blue turf from Bobbi Ann Brady, whose upset and style has drawn the ire of Premier Ford (“You won’t have a job next election,” he told her last April).
Martin, who was named as the candidate in late November, said her nomination “followed a rigorous process conducted” by the local riding association to “ensure the most suitable candidate would stand for election.” “I am deeply grateful for the association’s diligence in evaluating candidates and for their confidence in my ability to represent [the riding],” she wrote on Facebook.
But privately, a series of Facebook posts and leaked emails point to a murky process behind Martin’s appointment, which has led at least one riding association executive to quit and a wannabe candidate to speak out.
Here’s what happened:
In August, an internal memo from party president Michael Diamond launched the nomination process — requesting each riding “strike a candidate search committee and begin the process of reviewing potential candidates.” The ridings, according to the party’s rules, would be required to conduct a “diligent and exhaustive search” of wannabe candidates, culminating in a written report sent to the party.
It took a bit over two months for the local riding association to initiate that process. By early October, an email from association president Jeff Miller called on members to point the search group to “potential candidates who are passionate about advocating for our riding and dedicated to representing our values.”
“If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a candidate, please email your interest,” he wrote. “A committee member will be in touch.”
Only around one hundred members received the email, according to a source familiar with the process. “They were hoping that nobody would notice the email, so only Amy would apply, allowing them to say, ‘well, we appointed her because nobody else applied,’” the source charged.
Former federal riding association president Dustin Wakeford — who characterized the process as a “true subversion of democracy” — claimed he was one of those who didn’t receive the riding association’s email about wannabe candidates.
Wakeford had expressed interest in the nomination, though he ultimately chose not to submit his dossier because he suspected the outcome had already been decided. “That is a complete and utter fabrication to disguise their contempt for the democratic process,” Wakeford wrote in a Facebook post. “... The local party association is a decrepit and atrophied organization.”
Aside from Martin, at least three other potential candidates signalled interest in running — and the riding association’s membership, the source explained, nearly doubled “in anticipation of a nomination meeting.” The three include: former Haldimand mayor Ken Hewitt, the past candidate who has since been appointed to Ontario’s Land Tribunal; Kristal Chopp, Martin’s predecessor; and Albert Marshall, an entrepreneur who once sought to rival Leslyn Lewis for the federal nomination.
The party said the search committee “asked questions of the candidates and invited them to meet before submitting their names for vetting” — but in an interview, Chopp, who submitted a nomination package, denied that she was ever screened.
The four were scheduled for an interview at the start of November, each on the same day. Chopp says she and one other candidate, Hewitt, were unavailable and requested an alternative date. Hewitt couldn’t be reached to comment on this story. In an email to the four candidates, Miller wrote that the search committee would review their “CV and responses” and include their names, along with other interested individuals, in the recommendations forwarded to the party for further consideration.
In a separate email to a local member, Miller indicated that “all the candidates were unable to attend.” “The local search committee decided that all four individuals should have their names forwarded to the provincial search committee,” he wrote to Dave King. “The local search committee did their job. I will say it again, [we] referred all four names to the provincial search committee.”
“One of the four individuals who submitted their names was selected at that level,” he added.
Almost a month later, without notice, Martin would be announced as the candidate. “Supposedly, there was a search committee, but it was hardly a diligent or exhaustive process,” Chopp said, questioning the basis on which a decision was made when she and the rest weren’t interviewed. Chopp says they’ve “refused to disclose” what exactly was in a “package” of information sent to the party by the local search team about each candidate. “It seems like it was all orchestrated to ensure Amy was the only viable option,” she added.
Chopp, just like the rest, heard about Martin’s appointment through a press release. “There was never even a phone call, a thank you for putting your name forward. Nothing,” she said.
King — who described himself as a “concerned Conservative member”— was a supporter of Chopp and criticized the entire process. “I think they’re trying to pretend they had a proper selection process,” he said in a phone interview.
King sent multiple inquiries to Miller, seeking clarity around the process, but got no reply. “It appears that you are saying the general membership has no say or vote [on] who the selected will be [and that] the decision rests entirely with a chosen few, with no chance for the general membership to be aware of who the candidates are,” he wrote in response to Miller’s email.
However, Miller, he says, stopped by his house a month ago to go over the process. “He said he couldn’t answer some of my questions because he had signed a non-disclosure agreement,” King recalled. “He said they submitted all the candidates’ names to the provincial party, but he didn’t recommend anyone in particular.”
King intended to challenge Martin’s nomination, as per party protocol, but was told it was an appointment and couldn’t be contested. “They told me Premier Ford is allowed to appoint up to ten candidates directly. That’s how they got off the hook,” he explained.
But that isn’t what the party would say explicitly — though they didn’t use “nominated” or “appointed,” they said she was “announced” as the candidate. In her post, Martin claimed there was a “rigorous process” conducted by the association to select the “most suitable candidate.”
“The press release didn’t even use the word ‘appointed,’ but that’s exactly what it was,” Chopp countered. “There was no vetting process. The claim that it was rigorous is complete nonsense.”
A message from Mainstreet Research:
We believe strongly in the power of data to illuminate most any issue, but data is not enough. At Mainstreet Research, we have the experience and know how to harness the potential of data to deliver the insights that are critical to any business, political or public policy decision. Learn more.
It’s unclear who served on the local search committee, further clouding an already contentious process. King said Miller wouldn’t reveal who was on the committee, while one executive member, who quit over the process, said he was blinsided and “didn’t even know we had a nominating committee” in place at the time.
“As an executive member, I just resigned,” Mike Ramsey, who once served as Dunnville’s deputy mayor and as the riding association’s president, wrote on Facebook. “I can assure you there was a lot of interest, and I feel a fair and open nomination meeting and a vote could have happened.” He said the process was “poorly run” and that “some interested did not know at all about the nomination,” deriding Martin as a “Toronto appointed candidate.”
“This is now the third time we’ve not had a chance to vote for our candidate,” he wrote. “This is wrong and Ford knows it.”
In a phone interview, Ramsey said the entire process didn’t sit right with him. “I’m not someone who just walked off the street and decided to quit. I’ve been involved in this all my life,” he explained. Almost seven months ago, Ramsey was asked to sit on the riding association’s executive board once again. Since the Tories’ surprise defeat in the last election, it’s been nothing but turbulence for the riding association — the entire executive board had walked out in protest over the decision to appoint Ken Hewitt as the candidate.
“At one of the last meetings I attended — actually, the last one — they started going through the process of nominations,” Ramsey recalled. “I come from the old school. I tried to convey to the executive that I was tired of this process of appointing candidates. That’s both at the federal and provincial level.”
The meeting? All about Martin, if you ask Ramsey. “It was Amy, Amy, Amy,” he said. “I asked how they advertised the nomination process and they said they sent emails to the membership. I said you need to put it out on social media and you need to put it in local newspapers. I asked for a vote and I got approval on it but they never did it.”
“We never had a meeting after that,” he said.
At that point, Ramsey said he could “smell a rat.” The executive member revealed he made some phone calls to get clarity, but was told that the number of candidates who’ve expressed interest was a “secret.” “I’m on the executive. I should know how many have come forward,” he explained.
At that point, Ramsey reached out to the party’s regional representative, who gave him a bit more information. “I went over their heads,” he said, “but I think I had every right as an executive member.” “I said there hasn’t been a meeting since the last one in September and we’re not getting any updates. I asked when the nomination process would start,” Ramsey recounted. “He said it had already started.”
“Well, funny,” Ramsey told him, “I didn’t even know he had a nominating committee!”
“I said ‘do we have candidates?’ He said ‘yes, the local interview process will start.’ He gave me the answers and I felt comfortable but I knew that something was not lining up properly,” he recalled.
The phone call landed Ramsey in hot water as word got back to Miller that he was poking around. “He called me and started slapping my hands about calling the regional representative. I said I have every right to call and find out what the process is.”
That’s because Ramsey was the assumption that they would vet at the headquarters and then they’d be OKd for a nomination race. “There’s no way in heck that any of these people would fail the vetting process,” Ramsey said. “Something was up.”
Right before he learned of Martin’s appointment, Ramsey decided to quit. “[The riding association] are wonderful people. They’re trying and they’re doing their best. I didn’t quit because of them. I quit because the headquarters up there in Toronto, they’re overriding us. If they were so bent on making this decision, they should have come down and addressed the executive on it — they didn’t,” he said.
For many, it’s a case of election déjà vu. The party’s decision to appoint Hewitt as the candidate in the last election created a ripple of discontent in the traditional blue district, which ultimately helped Bobbi Ann Brady — the riding association’s former president and executive assistant to Toby Barrett — cruise to victory as an independent candidate.
At the time, Brady said Hewitt was a candidate “none of us as local Conservatives could condone.”
“They have done the exact same thing, again,” Brady, who is set to take on Martin, said. “They circumvented the nomination process — and they circumvented the nomination process, again. I call it the demise of democracy.”
In fact, Brady says she encouraged Chopp to run. “I was well aware and encouraged Kristal to do so as it is good for democracy,” she said. “From a riding perspective, having poeple interested is healthy. Kristal was open and honest and I thought it was courteous that she called me.”
Brady, meanwhile, isn’t surprised with Martin’s appointment. She says she’d orchestrated a campaign, as mayor, to sideline her. “The mayor has been campaigning against me from her mayoralty seat for the past six months, asking me not to go to meetings and having her team tell me that I’m uninvited to certain things,” Brady said. “The appointment is not a shock to me.”
Over in Haldimand, it’s the same. Last August, Brady was excluded from delegation meetings with cabinet ministers at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s conference because her presence would be “detrimental to the county.”
For Chopp, it’s part of a larger issue. “For the third time now, they have appointed a candidate of their choosing in Haldimand—Norfolk as opposed to having a democratic process and allowing the people to choose their own representative,” she said. “The joke has always been that you could basically put a monkey up for election as a Conservative and they would win. The province didn’t have to dedicate much time or resources to us because it was such a comfortable riding for them, and I think we are far behind the rest of the province as a result.”
Brady’s old boss and predecessor isn’t happy with Martin’s appointment either. “Yet another appointment is pathetic and people in this independent riding will work yet again and vote to show we will not be taken for granted,” Barrett wrote in a Facebook post. He hasn’t been too happy with Ford’s performance lately.
Meanwhile, it’s go, go, go for Martin. Though she’s still mayor, she’s planning to take an unpaid leave to “focus fully on campaigning and connecting with residents throughout the riding” once the writ is formally issued.
The party didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.
SCOOP — “Pathetic.” “The demise of democracy.” “Democracy here really is about the nomination more so than the election itself.”
That’s how some are describing the Progressive Conservative’s nomination process in Haldimand—Norfolk, which handed an uncontested spot on the ticket — for the second time — to a local mayor.
This time, the nomination went to Amy Martin. She’s the Norfolk County mayor — the county’s “biggest fan,” she says — who was just installed as the chair of the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus. For the mayor, it’s no small climb: she’s tasked with snagging a historically blue turf from Bobbi Ann Brady, whose upset and style has drawn the ire of Premier Ford (“You won’t have a job next election,” he told her last April).
Martin, who was named as the candidate in late November, said her nomination “followed a rigorous process conducted” by the local riding association to “ensure the most suitable candidate would stand for election.” “I am deeply grateful for the association’s diligence in evaluating candidates and for their confidence in my ability to represent [the riding],” she wrote on Facebook.
But privately, a series of Facebook posts and leaked emails point to a murky process behind Martin’s appointment, which has led at least one riding association executive to quit and a wannabe candidate to speak out.
Here’s what happened:
In August, an internal memo from party president Michael Diamond launched the nomination process — requesting each riding “strike a candidate search committee and begin the process of reviewing potential candidates.” The ridings, according to the party’s rules, would be required to conduct a “diligent and exhaustive search” of wannabe candidates, culminating in a written report sent to the party.
It took a bit over two months for the local riding association to initiate that process. By early October, an email from association president Jeff Miller called on members to point the search group to “potential candidates who are passionate about advocating for our riding and dedicated to representing our values.”
“If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a candidate, please email your interest,” he wrote. “A committee member will be in touch.”
Only around one hundred members received the email, according to a source familiar with the process. “They were hoping that nobody would notice the email, so only Amy would apply, allowing them to say, ‘well, we appointed her because nobody else applied,’” the source charged.
Former federal riding association president Dustin Wakeford — who characterized the process as a “true subversion of democracy” — claimed he was one of those who didn’t receive the riding association’s email about wannabe candidates.
Wakeford had expressed interest in the nomination, though he ultimately chose not to submit his dossier because he suspected the outcome had already been decided. “That is a complete and utter fabrication to disguise their contempt for the democratic process,” Wakeford wrote in a Facebook post. “... The local party association is a decrepit and atrophied organization.”
Aside from Martin, at least three other potential candidates signalled interest in running — and the riding association’s membership, the source explained, nearly doubled “in anticipation of a nomination meeting.” The three include: former Haldimand mayor Ken Hewitt, the past candidate who has since been appointed to Ontario’s Land Tribunal; Kristal Chopp, Martin’s predecessor; and Albert Marshall, an entrepreneur who once sought to rival Leslyn Lewis for the federal nomination.
The party said the search committee “asked questions of the candidates and invited them to meet before submitting their names for vetting” — but in an interview, Chopp, who submitted a nomination package, denied that she was ever screened.
The four were scheduled for an interview at the start of November, each on the same day. Chopp says she and one other candidate, Hewitt, were unavailable and requested an alternative date. Hewitt couldn’t be reached to comment on this story. In an email to the four candidates, Miller wrote that the search committee would review their “CV and responses” and include their names, along with other interested individuals, in the recommendations forwarded to the party for further consideration.
In a separate email to a local member, Miller indicated that “all the candidates were unable to attend.” “The local search committee decided that all four individuals should have their names forwarded to the provincial search committee,” he wrote to Dave King. “The local search committee did their job. I will say it again, [we] referred all four names to the provincial search committee.”
“One of the four individuals who submitted their names was selected at that level,” he added.
Almost a month later, without notice, Martin would be announced as the candidate. “Supposedly, there was a search committee, but it was hardly a diligent or exhaustive process,” Chopp said, questioning the basis on which a decision was made when she and the rest weren’t interviewed. Chopp says they’ve “refused to disclose” what exactly was in a “package” of information sent to the party by the local search team about each candidate. “It seems like it was all orchestrated to ensure Amy was the only viable option,” she added.
Chopp, just like the rest, heard about Martin’s appointment through a press release. “There was never even a phone call, a thank you for putting your name forward. Nothing,” she said.
King — who described himself as a “concerned Conservative member”— was a supporter of Chopp and criticized the entire process. “I think they’re trying to pretend they had a proper selection process,” he said in a phone interview.
King sent multiple inquiries to Miller, seeking clarity around the process, but got no reply. “It appears that you are saying the general membership has no say or vote [on] who the selected will be [and that] the decision rests entirely with a chosen few, with no chance for the general membership to be aware of who the candidates are,” he wrote in response to Miller’s email.
However, Miller, he says, stopped by his house a month ago to go over the process. “He said he couldn’t answer some of my questions because he had signed a non-disclosure agreement,” King recalled. “He said they submitted all the candidates’ names to the provincial party, but he didn’t recommend anyone in particular.”
King intended to challenge Martin’s nomination, as per party protocol, but was told it was an appointment and couldn’t be contested. “They told me Premier Ford is allowed to appoint up to ten candidates directly. That’s how they got off the hook,” he explained.
But that isn’t what the party would say explicitly — though they didn’t use “nominated” or “appointed,” they said she was “announced” as the candidate. In her post, Martin claimed there was a “rigorous process” conducted by the association to select the “most suitable candidate.”
“The press release didn’t even use the word ‘appointed,’ but that’s exactly what it was,” Chopp countered. “There was no vetting process. The claim that it was rigorous is complete nonsense.”
A message from Mainstreet Research:
We believe strongly in the power of data to illuminate most any issue, but data is not enough. At Mainstreet Research, we have the experience and know how to harness the potential of data to deliver the insights that are critical to any business, political or public policy decision. Learn more.
It’s unclear who served on the local search committee, further clouding an already contentious process. King said Miller wouldn’t reveal who was on the committee, while one executive member, who quit over the process, said he was blinsided and “didn’t even know we had a nominating committee” in place at the time.
“As an executive member, I just resigned,” Mike Ramsey, who once served as Dunnville’s deputy mayor and as the riding association’s president, wrote on Facebook. “I can assure you there was a lot of interest, and I feel a fair and open nomination meeting and a vote could have happened.” He said the process was “poorly run” and that “some interested did not know at all about the nomination,” deriding Martin as a “Toronto appointed candidate.”
“This is now the third time we’ve not had a chance to vote for our candidate,” he wrote. “This is wrong and Ford knows it.”
In a phone interview, Ramsey said the entire process didn’t sit right with him. “I’m not someone who just walked off the street and decided to quit. I’ve been involved in this all my life,” he explained. Almost seven months ago, Ramsey was asked to sit on the riding association’s executive board once again. Since the Tories’ surprise defeat in the last election, it’s been nothing but turbulence for the riding association — the entire executive board had walked out in protest over the decision to appoint Ken Hewitt as the candidate.
“At one of the last meetings I attended — actually, the last one — they started going through the process of nominations,” Ramsey recalled. “I come from the old school. I tried to convey to the executive that I was tired of this process of appointing candidates. That’s both at the federal and provincial level.”
The meeting? All about Martin, if you ask Ramsey. “It was Amy, Amy, Amy,” he said. “I asked how they advertised the nomination process and they said they sent emails to the membership. I said you need to put it out on social media and you need to put it in local newspapers. I asked for a vote and I got approval on it but they never did it.”
“We never had a meeting after that,” he said.
At that point, Ramsey said he could “smell a rat.” The executive member revealed he made some phone calls to get clarity, but was told that the number of candidates who’ve expressed interest was a “secret.” “I’m on the executive. I should know how many have come forward,” he explained.
At that point, Ramsey reached out to the party’s regional representative, who gave him a bit more information. “I went over their heads,” he said, “but I think I had every right as an executive member.” “I said there hasn’t been a meeting since the last one in September and we’re not getting any updates. I asked when the nomination process would start,” Ramsey recounted. “He said it had already started.”
“Well, funny,” Ramsey told him, “I didn’t even know he had a nominating committee!”
“I said ‘do we have candidates?’ He said ‘yes, the local interview process will start.’ He gave me the answers and I felt comfortable but I knew that something was not lining up properly,” he recalled.
The phone call landed Ramsey in hot water as word got back to Miller that he was poking around. “He called me and started slapping my hands about calling the regional representative. I said I have every right to call and find out what the process is.”
That’s because Ramsey was the assumption that they would vet at the headquarters and then they’d be OKd for a nomination race. “There’s no way in heck that any of these people would fail the vetting process,” Ramsey said. “Something was up.”
Right before he learned of Martin’s appointment, Ramsey decided to quit. “[The riding association] are wonderful people. They’re trying and they’re doing their best. I didn’t quit because of them. I quit because the headquarters up there in Toronto, they’re overriding us. If they were so bent on making this decision, they should have come down and addressed the executive on it — they didn’t,” he said.
For many, it’s a case of election déjà vu. The party’s decision to appoint Hewitt as the candidate in the last election created a ripple of discontent in the traditional blue district, which ultimately helped Bobbi Ann Brady — the riding association’s former president and executive assistant to Toby Barrett — cruise to victory as an independent candidate.
At the time, Brady said Hewitt was a candidate “none of us as local Conservatives could condone.”
“They have done the exact same thing, again,” Brady, who is set to take on Martin, said. “They circumvented the nomination process — and they circumvented the nomination process, again. I call it the demise of democracy.”
In fact, Brady says she encouraged Chopp to run. “I was well aware and encouraged Kristal to do so as it is good for democracy,” she said. “From a riding perspective, having poeple interested is healthy. Kristal was open and honest and I thought it was courteous that she called me.”
Brady, meanwhile, isn’t surprised with Martin’s appointment. She says she’d orchestrated a campaign, as mayor, to sideline her. “The mayor has been campaigning against me from her mayoralty seat for the past six months, asking me not to go to meetings and having her team tell me that I’m uninvited to certain things,” Brady said. “The appointment is not a shock to me.”
Over in Haldimand, it’s the same. Last August, Brady was excluded from delegation meetings with cabinet ministers at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s conference because her presence would be “detrimental to the county.”
For Chopp, it’s part of a larger issue. “For the third time now, they have appointed a candidate of their choosing in Haldimand—Norfolk as opposed to having a democratic process and allowing the people to choose their own representative,” she said. “The joke has always been that you could basically put a monkey up for election as a Conservative and they would win. The province didn’t have to dedicate much time or resources to us because it was such a comfortable riding for them, and I think we are far behind the rest of the province as a result.”
Brady’s old boss and predecessor isn’t happy with Martin’s appointment either. “Yet another appointment is pathetic and people in this independent riding will work yet again and vote to show we will not be taken for granted,” Barrett wrote in a Facebook post. He hasn’t been too happy with Ford’s performance lately.
Meanwhile, it’s go, go, go for Martin. Though she’s still mayor, she’s planning to take an unpaid leave to “focus fully on campaigning and connecting with residents throughout the riding” once the writ is formally issued.
The party didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.
SCOOP — “Pathetic.” “The demise of democracy.” “Democracy here really is about the nomination more so than the election itself.”
That’s how some are describing the Progressive Conservative’s nomination process in Haldimand—Norfolk, which handed an uncontested spot on the ticket — for the second time — to a local mayor.
This time, the nomination went to Amy Martin. She’s the Norfolk County mayor — the county’s “biggest fan,” she says — who was just installed as the chair of the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus. For the mayor, it’s no small climb: she’s tasked with snagging a historically blue turf from Bobbi Ann Brady, whose upset and style has drawn the ire of Premier Ford (“You won’t have a job next election,” he told her last April).
Martin, who was named as the candidate in late November, said her nomination “followed a rigorous process conducted” by the local riding association to “ensure the most suitable candidate would stand for election.” “I am deeply grateful for the association’s diligence in evaluating candidates and for their confidence in my ability to represent [the riding],” she wrote on Facebook.
But privately, a series of Facebook posts and leaked emails point to a murky process behind Martin’s appointment, which has led at least one riding association executive to quit and a wannabe candidate to speak out.
Here’s what happened:
In August, an internal memo from party president Michael Diamond launched the nomination process — requesting each riding “strike a candidate search committee and begin the process of reviewing potential candidates.” The ridings, according to the party’s rules, would be required to conduct a “diligent and exhaustive search” of wannabe candidates, culminating in a written report sent to the party.
It took a bit over two months for the local riding association to initiate that process. By early October, an email from association president Jeff Miller called on members to point the search group to “potential candidates who are passionate about advocating for our riding and dedicated to representing our values.”
“If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a candidate, please email your interest,” he wrote. “A committee member will be in touch.”
Only around one hundred members received the email, according to a source familiar with the process. “They were hoping that nobody would notice the email, so only Amy would apply, allowing them to say, ‘well, we appointed her because nobody else applied,’” the source charged.
Former federal riding association president Dustin Wakeford — who characterized the process as a “true subversion of democracy” — claimed he was one of those who didn’t receive the riding association’s email about wannabe candidates.
Wakeford had expressed interest in the nomination, though he ultimately chose not to submit his dossier because he suspected the outcome had already been decided. “That is a complete and utter fabrication to disguise their contempt for the democratic process,” Wakeford wrote in a Facebook post. “... The local party association is a decrepit and atrophied organization.”
Aside from Martin, at least three other potential candidates signalled interest in running — and the riding association’s membership, the source explained, nearly doubled “in anticipation of a nomination meeting.” The three include: former Haldimand mayor Ken Hewitt, the past candidate who has since been appointed to Ontario’s Land Tribunal; Kristal Chopp, Martin’s predecessor; and Albert Marshall, an entrepreneur who once sought to rival Leslyn Lewis for the federal nomination.
The party said the search committee “asked questions of the candidates and invited them to meet before submitting their names for vetting” — but in an interview, Chopp, who submitted a nomination package, denied that she was ever screened.
The four were scheduled for an interview at the start of November, each on the same day. Chopp says she and one other candidate, Hewitt, were unavailable and requested an alternative date. Hewitt couldn’t be reached to comment on this story. In an email to the four candidates, Miller wrote that the search committee would review their “CV and responses” and include their names, along with other interested individuals, in the recommendations forwarded to the party for further consideration.
In a separate email to a local member, Miller indicated that “all the candidates were unable to attend.” “The local search committee decided that all four individuals should have their names forwarded to the provincial search committee,” he wrote to Dave King. “The local search committee did their job. I will say it again, [we] referred all four names to the provincial search committee.”
“One of the four individuals who submitted their names was selected at that level,” he added.
Almost a month later, without notice, Martin would be announced as the candidate. “Supposedly, there was a search committee, but it was hardly a diligent or exhaustive process,” Chopp said, questioning the basis on which a decision was made when she and the rest weren’t interviewed. Chopp says they’ve “refused to disclose” what exactly was in a “package” of information sent to the party by the local search team about each candidate. “It seems like it was all orchestrated to ensure Amy was the only viable option,” she added.
Chopp, just like the rest, heard about Martin’s appointment through a press release. “There was never even a phone call, a thank you for putting your name forward. Nothing,” she said.
King — who described himself as a “concerned Conservative member”— was a supporter of Chopp and criticized the entire process. “I think they’re trying to pretend they had a proper selection process,” he said in a phone interview.
King sent multiple inquiries to Miller, seeking clarity around the process, but got no reply. “It appears that you are saying the general membership has no say or vote [on] who the selected will be [and that] the decision rests entirely with a chosen few, with no chance for the general membership to be aware of who the candidates are,” he wrote in response to Miller’s email.
However, Miller, he says, stopped by his house a month ago to go over the process. “He said he couldn’t answer some of my questions because he had signed a non-disclosure agreement,” King recalled. “He said they submitted all the candidates’ names to the provincial party, but he didn’t recommend anyone in particular.”
King intended to challenge Martin’s nomination, as per party protocol, but was told it was an appointment and couldn’t be contested. “They told me Premier Ford is allowed to appoint up to ten candidates directly. That’s how they got off the hook,” he explained.
But that isn’t what the party would say explicitly — though they didn’t use “nominated” or “appointed,” they said she was “announced” as the candidate. In her post, Martin claimed there was a “rigorous process” conducted by the association to select the “most suitable candidate.”
“The press release didn’t even use the word ‘appointed,’ but that’s exactly what it was,” Chopp countered. “There was no vetting process. The claim that it was rigorous is complete nonsense.”
A message from Mainstreet Research:
We believe strongly in the power of data to illuminate most any issue, but data is not enough. At Mainstreet Research, we have the experience and know how to harness the potential of data to deliver the insights that are critical to any business, political or public policy decision. Learn more.
It’s unclear who served on the local search committee, further clouding an already contentious process. King said Miller wouldn’t reveal who was on the committee, while one executive member, who quit over the process, said he was blinsided and “didn’t even know we had a nominating committee” in place at the time.
“As an executive member, I just resigned,” Mike Ramsey, who once served as Dunnville’s deputy mayor and as the riding association’s president, wrote on Facebook. “I can assure you there was a lot of interest, and I feel a fair and open nomination meeting and a vote could have happened.” He said the process was “poorly run” and that “some interested did not know at all about the nomination,” deriding Martin as a “Toronto appointed candidate.”
“This is now the third time we’ve not had a chance to vote for our candidate,” he wrote. “This is wrong and Ford knows it.”
In a phone interview, Ramsey said the entire process didn’t sit right with him. “I’m not someone who just walked off the street and decided to quit. I’ve been involved in this all my life,” he explained. Almost seven months ago, Ramsey was asked to sit on the riding association’s executive board once again. Since the Tories’ surprise defeat in the last election, it’s been nothing but turbulence for the riding association — the entire executive board had walked out in protest over the decision to appoint Ken Hewitt as the candidate.
“At one of the last meetings I attended — actually, the last one — they started going through the process of nominations,” Ramsey recalled. “I come from the old school. I tried to convey to the executive that I was tired of this process of appointing candidates. That’s both at the federal and provincial level.”
The meeting? All about Martin, if you ask Ramsey. “It was Amy, Amy, Amy,” he said. “I asked how they advertised the nomination process and they said they sent emails to the membership. I said you need to put it out on social media and you need to put it in local newspapers. I asked for a vote and I got approval on it but they never did it.”
“We never had a meeting after that,” he said.
At that point, Ramsey said he could “smell a rat.” The executive member revealed he made some phone calls to get clarity, but was told that the number of candidates who’ve expressed interest was a “secret.” “I’m on the executive. I should know how many have come forward,” he explained.
At that point, Ramsey reached out to the party’s regional representative, who gave him a bit more information. “I went over their heads,” he said, “but I think I had every right as an executive member.” “I said there hasn’t been a meeting since the last one in September and we’re not getting any updates. I asked when the nomination process would start,” Ramsey recounted. “He said it had already started.”
“Well, funny,” Ramsey told him, “I didn’t even know he had a nominating committee!”
“I said ‘do we have candidates?’ He said ‘yes, the local interview process will start.’ He gave me the answers and I felt comfortable but I knew that something was not lining up properly,” he recalled.
The phone call landed Ramsey in hot water as word got back to Miller that he was poking around. “He called me and started slapping my hands about calling the regional representative. I said I have every right to call and find out what the process is.”
That’s because Ramsey was the assumption that they would vet at the headquarters and then they’d be OKd for a nomination race. “There’s no way in heck that any of these people would fail the vetting process,” Ramsey said. “Something was up.”
Right before he learned of Martin’s appointment, Ramsey decided to quit. “[The riding association] are wonderful people. They’re trying and they’re doing their best. I didn’t quit because of them. I quit because the headquarters up there in Toronto, they’re overriding us. If they were so bent on making this decision, they should have come down and addressed the executive on it — they didn’t,” he said.
For many, it’s a case of election déjà vu. The party’s decision to appoint Hewitt as the candidate in the last election created a ripple of discontent in the traditional blue district, which ultimately helped Bobbi Ann Brady — the riding association’s former president and executive assistant to Toby Barrett — cruise to victory as an independent candidate.
At the time, Brady said Hewitt was a candidate “none of us as local Conservatives could condone.”
“They have done the exact same thing, again,” Brady, who is set to take on Martin, said. “They circumvented the nomination process — and they circumvented the nomination process, again. I call it the demise of democracy.”
In fact, Brady says she encouraged Chopp to run. “I was well aware and encouraged Kristal to do so as it is good for democracy,” she said. “From a riding perspective, having poeple interested is healthy. Kristal was open and honest and I thought it was courteous that she called me.”
Brady, meanwhile, isn’t surprised with Martin’s appointment. She says she’d orchestrated a campaign, as mayor, to sideline her. “The mayor has been campaigning against me from her mayoralty seat for the past six months, asking me not to go to meetings and having her team tell me that I’m uninvited to certain things,” Brady said. “The appointment is not a shock to me.”
Over in Haldimand, it’s the same. Last August, Brady was excluded from delegation meetings with cabinet ministers at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s conference because her presence would be “detrimental to the county.”
For Chopp, it’s part of a larger issue. “For the third time now, they have appointed a candidate of their choosing in Haldimand—Norfolk as opposed to having a democratic process and allowing the people to choose their own representative,” she said. “The joke has always been that you could basically put a monkey up for election as a Conservative and they would win. The province didn’t have to dedicate much time or resources to us because it was such a comfortable riding for them, and I think we are far behind the rest of the province as a result.”
Brady’s old boss and predecessor isn’t happy with Martin’s appointment either. “Yet another appointment is pathetic and people in this independent riding will work yet again and vote to show we will not be taken for granted,” Barrett wrote in a Facebook post. He hasn’t been too happy with Ford’s performance lately.
Meanwhile, it’s go, go, go for Martin. Though she’s still mayor, she’s planning to take an unpaid leave to “focus fully on campaigning and connecting with residents throughout the riding” once the writ is formally issued.
The party didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.