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Northern Ontario Party leadership questioned

The recently revived Northern Ontario Party and its new leader faced questions about its legitimacy from a party insider during a visit in Thunder Bay Sunday.
Trevor Holliday
Northern Ontario Party leader Trevor Holliday was appointed to the position earlier this summer. (Photo by Doug Diaczuk - tbnewswatch.com).

A newly revived political entity in Ontario is calling itself a party of the people, but at least one party insider is questioning the legitimacy of the appointed leader.

The Northern Ontario Party's board of directors appointed Trevor Holliday as its leader earlier this summer. That appointment came before a Northern Ontario tour that led Holliday to a stop in Thunder Bay Sunday. 

However, Paul Sloan, the past president of three ridings for the Northern Ontario Party and a former candidate for Thunder Bay city council, is questioning the process that led to Holliday’s appointment, as well as the appointments of party president Edward Deibel, and CFO Andy Wolff.

“There hasn’t been any election or selection by the party,” Sloan said.

“You had three people that submitted paperwork, self-appointing themselves in those positions.”

The Northern Ontario Party submitted forms to Elections Ontario to change the name of the party from the Northern Ontario Heritage Party, while also naming Holliday as the new leader.

“These three guys just put their names on the paper and sent it off to Elections Ontario,” Sloan said. “They were likely telling them a bunch of lies because they were telling everyone else a bunch of lies for their reasoning for not having an election.”

According to Sloan, Holliday, Deibel, and Wolff falsely claimed that there were no party members at the time the forms were filed, or no interest from, or no way to contact past party members.

Holliday disagrees with Sloan’s accusations and said there was no documentation on who is an active party member and who is not.

He also said that the party has been in contact with Election’s Ontario and everything is 100 per cent legitimate.

“The paperwork is proper,” he said.

“It went through the scrutiny of the Elections Ontario legal department. There is no concern, because if there was, Elections Ontario wouldn’t have granted the name change or the leadership change.”

Sloan argues that the party bylaws state that a new leader must be chosen through an election, as well as pointing to Election’s Ontario website that states leadership contestants must register with Election’s Ontario prior to any leadership election.

However, Holliday and Wolff said that at the time of the appointment, the party had no bylaws or constitution in place.

“To start from somewhere, there has to be someone in place,” Holliday said.

“There has to be something in place. If there’s no members or even just one member, positions have to be filled and you pick the strongest person possible at that time. As things move forward, you make the adjustments and the changes.”

Holliday said that there will be a leadership election in the future, though could not say when. Holliday is touring the region and signing people up for party memberships and there are currently 45 active members.

“This is what Trevor’s doing, he wants to get enough members so we can have a confidence vote and then have an election,” said Northern Ontario Party CFO, Andy Wolff.

“Right now the main focus is creating the foundation, creating the riding constituencies, and growing out the party from there,” Holliday added.

“Does [a leadership election] need to be done? Yes. Will it be done today? No, because a lot of the members are signing up with myself and the board we have now.”

Sloan said that he takes issue with Holliday signing up new members and claiming to be the leader of the party.

“Some of them are buying memberships and maybe contributing money and it’s all going under his control,” he said.

“That’s not going to be a good situation. People are getting scammed by what he is doing. They are going to be supporting something that is veneer rather than anything substantial.”

Holliday does not seem bothered by Sloan questioning him as leader of the Northern Ontario Party and he is confident that everything was done by the books.

“It becomes a he said she said on the whole front,” Holliday said. “But it boils down to what was done is correct. The issue will always come down that someone doesn’t like what’s happening.”


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Doug Diaczuk

About the Author: Doug Diaczuk

Doug Diaczuk is a reporter and award-winning author from Thunder Bay. He has a master’s degree in English from Lakehead University
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