It was a high school teacher that taught Justin Leroux there were other schools of thought on how to run a nation, and led him to run for the Libertarian Party of Canada in the 2025 federal election.
As a candidate for the newly formed riding of Sudbury East–Manitoulin–Nickel Belt Leroux told Sudbury.com he joined the party to push for individual respect and individual responsibility. Libertarianism is a political philosophy that advocates only minimal state intervention in the free market and the private lives of citizens.
Born in Sudbury but raisedin North Bay, Leroux feels that socialism, another political philosophy, in its worst forms, becomes a “hive mind.”
“In the most extreme cases of bad socialist policy, that's how Hitler came to rise to power, just this kind of like hive mind idea where it's like, you have someone who's enthusiastic, you have these policies, and before you even realize it, it puts them versus us, and that's a huge thing, especially in our world right now,”said Leroux.
“There's no room to have a message or policy; you either are with them or you're not, and if you're not, you're wrong, and that's not the case.”
He said it was the idea that “we can respect an individual's freedoms and we can put more control into people for their own lives,” that made him a libertarian. “And yes, that means individuals have to take more responsibility, but it doesn't mean we have to leave people out in the cold.”
That was an aspect of some forms of libertarian belief that Leroux struggled with at first, especially after a back injury left him unable to continue to work as a funeral director, which was his first profession.
That, and as a practicing Catholic who once considered joining the seminary, leaving vulnerable people behind didn’t sit well with him.
“A priest, when they're assigned to a parish, they are responsible for all of the souls in their community, not just the Catholics, not just the people who attend the parish, for every soul,” said Leroux, who now works in information technology. “But I haven't figured it out properly and I still make mistakes.”
He told Sudbury.com that’s why he doesn’t jump to the extreme of any belief system.
“There are libertarians who are anarchists, and there are libertarians who are closer to my end, where the reality is that we will always need some form of tax structure but with a much lesser burden — there's always going to be a need for services and support.”
He said he just happens to fall to “the practical, conservative side of things.”
To learn a little more about how he would govern, Sudbury.com asked him about the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health measures that were imposed that many people feel infringed on personal freedoms (as the Libertarian philosophy puts a great deal of stake in individual freedoms), and how a libertarian government would have handled it.
He said the roll-out of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) was not done well, or with good communication, leaving many people unsure if the money was meant to be a loan.
That, and the requirement to limit movement.
“There was a need, of course, to reduce activity, but we can't limit people in their ability to move freely. That's a charter right, to move freely within the country,” he said. “So when the government says all of these businesses are not essential, whether it be barber shops, restaurants, they kind of just made this carte-blanche policy, and that killed not only a lot of business, but it killed a lot of people working very closely with families.”
He said “there were so many people that, for them, one smile a day from someone walking down the street — behind a mask or not — or being able just to be in a space with people, that was what was keeping them on this earth. And unfortunately, a lot of people completed suicide as a result of complete social isolation.”
A founding member of the North Simcoe Compassionate Care Community, Leroux, he did clarify that this didn’t compare to the number of people who died from COVID-19, and that he would have advised following public health requirements.
“Now, we're dealing with people who have either lost their business and lost their livelihood, and we are seeing people who are kind of being forced into dependencies,” he said. “So the way that I would look at this for our riding is, what can we do in the region as well as in our communities, to kind of bring some of these businesses back?”
He said that with the United States “tariff crisis,” this region can focus on supporting local. “Removing some of the financial commitments and all of that to opening a business, it really shouldn't be the government benefiting from someone's hard work,” he said. “With every kind of business license in place, all the different things that you have to pay for in order to get there is a barrier for people, as is the tax burden.
If he were elected, which, he acknowledges is a long shot, he wants to focus on improving the market and “taking away the legislative blocks to allow people to return to business.”
Leroux has not been invited to any local debates, but you can find his website here.
Jenny Lamothe is a reporter with Sudbury.com.