The Perfect Enemy | New Blue Party tests the political waters in its first election

For a political party contesting its first election, what defines success?

For the New Blue Party of Ontario, it’s already achieved one of its goals ahead of the June 2 election — fielding a candidate in each of the province’s 124 ridings, a claim not even all of the major parties can make this time around.

Is further success measured in building awareness of the party and its platform for future campaigns?

Is it found in keeping the party’s lone seat at Queen’s Park, the one won by New Blue co-founder Belinda Karahalios in Cambridge in 2018 as a Progressive Conservative?

To Belinda’s husband, Jim Karahalios — New Blue leader and Kitchener-Conestoga candidate — the party has laid the groundwork for its first run, with a full slate of candidates and a platform that “challenges the establishment and their left-progressive politics.”

“Beyond that, it’s up to the voters to decide how many votes they want to cast for New Blue. And in this first election, the voters are going to decide based on awareness, and awareness is obviously our challenge,” he said.

“We want to get through our first election campaign with an option on every ballot, make as many Ontario voters as possible aware that the New Blue party exists. And we believe that’s a success.”

While Jim Karahalios insists he bears no animosity toward the PC party, the New Blue party has its roots in the various quarrels, legal and otherwise, between the couple and the PCs.

In 2017, Jim Karahalios — then a party member behind the activist groups Axe the Carbon Tax and Take Back Our PC Party — was sued by the PCs; the court ruled in Karahalios’ favour, saying the party tried to use the lawsuit as a muzzle.

A year later, Jim, a corporate lawyer, ran for party presidency and later sued the PCs after he was defeated, claiming the process was rigged in favour of his competitor. That lawsuit is still before the courts.

He then launched a bid for federal Conservative Party leadership in 2020, but was twice disqualified after leadership candidate Erin O’Toole alleged Karahalios had made racist remarks in a letter referencing O’Toole’s campaign chair. Karahalios denied the letter was racist.

Meanwhile, Belinda Karahalios, who had run and won for the PCs in Cambridge in 2018, was making her own waves in the PC caucus, backing her husband’s assertion that the provincial party presidency election was compromised.

In July, 2020, she was kicked out of the PC caucus for voting against a bill that expanded government authority during the pandemic.

That October, the couple announced their intention to create a new party; with the New Blue party’s official registration early last year, PC-turned-independent MPP Belinda Karahalios became New Blue’s first elected representative.

Jim Karahalios said he’s happy to put the couple’s association with the PC party behind them, the ongoing lawsuit notwithstanding.

“I’m very grateful that I’m out of there, and it’s reinvigorated my passion toward grassroots politics,” he said. “It’s very freeing and a huge weight off my shoulders.”

Calling the New Blue party an alternative to the “establishment parties” and “the only right-of-centre option” on the ballot, Karahalios said it’s presenting voters with a choice that upholds “accountability, transparency and integrity.”

It wasn’t long ago that Karahalios was saying he wanted to replace the PCs as the province’s right-of-centre party. Now, he says they’ve done that work for him.

“I used to say, a few months ago, they want to be the provincial Ontario wing of the Justin Trudeau Liberal Party of Canada. But with their last budget announcement tabled on the last day of the legislature and the start of their campaign, it’s very, very clear that the transformation is complete,” he said.

“And so in Ontario, if you’re not for that establishment, top-down, progressive type of politics, you don’t have anyone to vote for, because the three parties, NDP, Liberals and the PCs, they agree on everything.”

Outlined in a document called the New Blueprint, the party’s platform calls for an end to all COVID-19 mandates, including a ban on vaccine passports, a complete repeal of provincial emergency measures, and “restitution for those harmed by emergency measures applied by the governments of Justin Trudeau or Doug Ford.”

Among other pledges, the party wants to trim the HST from 13 per cent to 10 per cent, dismantle wind turbines with the goal of reducing electricity prices, eliminate the taxpayer subsidy of political parties, ban lobbyists from party politics, and tax media companies that receive a federal subsidy.

In health care, the New Blue Party plans to expand early treatment for COVID-19, and rehire health care workers and offer choice in services to clear a procedural backlog.

On education, the party says it will reform the system by reducing administrative costs, implementing alternative schooling tax credits, and “stopping ‘woke’ activism with the removal of critical race theory and gender identity theory from our schools.”

In March, Belinda Karahalios was the only MPP present at Queen’s Park to cast a second-reading vote against Kitchener Centre NDP MPP Laura Mae Lindo’s bill on racial equity in the education system.

Noting she is of mixed ethnicity and saying “fighting racism is something we should strive for,” Karahalios maintained the proposed legislation “is a costly ‘big government’ bill that is designed to vilify our education system and our history as being systemically racist.”

While New Blue’s proposals may lead some voters to throw their support behind the new party, others might be attracted simply because it represents something different, said Andrea Perrella, an associate professor of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University.

“Their rhetoric and their platforms are definitely far further to the right than a more mainstream conservative party,” he said. “But a lot of these smaller parties don’t necessarily attract individuals who can identify with the party. They usually attract individuals who are looking for any alternative.”

A vote against existing parties, or a vote against the system itself, could be channeled to a New Blue candidate. “If you’re a party that has never governed, you may be attractive to the voter who doesn’t want a political party that has been tainted by or contaminated by power.”

However, the smaller parties like New Blue don’t have the prominence needed to attract significant numbers of votes, Perrella said.

When it comes to a potential outcome, Earl Washburn, a senior analyst with public opinion research firm EKOS Research Associates, draws a comparison between the New Blue party and the People’s Party of Canada, founded by former federal Conservative MP Maxime Bernier.

Despite name recognition and senior cabinet roles, Bernier has not been re-elected to the House of Commons as a People’s Party MP; the party has no seats in the House.

“Looking at the Bernier parallel, once you ditch a major party and start your own minor party, you’re not going to carry over that much support. Not enough to come anywhere close to being able to win the seat,” Washburn said.

Parties like New Blue and the Ontario Party — another party on the political right which had an ousted PC MPP as its lone representative at Queen’s Park — may stand to steal some votes away from the PCs, but that may be the extent of their electoral success, Washburn said.

For his part, Jim Karahalios knows the votes won’t come for New Blue if no one knows who they are.

“We’ve been working with our candidates for months on the importance of grassroots campaigning, including putting signs up and knocking on doors, to get the message out,” he said.

“When you’re starting a new party and you’re running against a couple of brands in the PCs and the Liberals that are over 100 years old, there’s no shortcut, there’s no elevator from Floor 1 to the top floor.

“And we’ve got to do it one step at a time.”