Ian Prittie, the PPC Candidate for Don Valley West

          By Chuck Black

"I have a good sense of what small business owners need to succeed," says Ian Prittie, the Peoples Party of Canada (PPC) candidate for Don Valley West in the upcoming Federal election.

Ian Prittie at the local Tim Horton's, preparing to canvass door to door with his team on June 8th, 2019. "Let's be clear. The Liberals and the Conservatives are promising money to specific groups to essentially buy their votes for the upcoming election. I'm different. Like Max Bernier, I want to balance the budget, reduce your taxes and increase our nation's personal savings rate. I'm just not sure that leaves a lot of extra money for the crony capitalists. If they want to be bought off, they'll have to vote for someone else" he says. Photo c/o Chuck Black.

Prittie started out as an engineer, following in his fathers footsteps. But twenty-three years ago he moved into financial services and hasn't looked back since.

"I grew up in a small business town," he says. "I'm greatly concerned about what small business needs to succeed, grow and create jobs."

He's got a background in capital markets, wealth, banking, the investment industry and engineering according to his LinkedIn page, which kinda gives him an idealized complete renaissance person type of vibe.

His laid back personality makes him easy to approach although it also means that he's never felt the need to run for public office before now.

But this time is different.

"I'm worried about Canada loosing the ability to attract foreign investment over the last four years of Liberal government," he says. "I expect we'll eventually slip back into recession because of the Liberals mismanagement and a recession under the Liberals would certainly be worse than any recession with another party in power." 

"The Liberals can't even balance their budget now."

The Don Valley West riding in relation to other Toronto electoral ridings. According to Wikipedia, 13.5% of the population in the riding the is Muslim, the highest in Canada.  27.8% of the population is Protestant, 20.0% is Catholic, 5.5% is Christian Orthodox and 16.5% of the populations lists no religious affiliation. The district includes York Mills, Silver Hills, the western half of Don Mills, the eastern half of Lawrence Park, Leaside, and Thorncliffe Park in Toronto. According to Prittie, the Don Valley West riding also has the highest proportion of legal immigrants of any riding in Canada. "We need to protect their rights," says Prittie, who hopes to represent the riding in Parliament after the next election. The riding is currently held by Liberal Rob Oliphant. Graphic c/o Wikipedia.

According to Prittie, "at the end of the day, a Federal election involves many things but I'd like to focus my campaign around personal issues like financial security for the voters and the viability and success of their job and career opportunities."

He's also deeply concerned about the ongoing suppression of independent and conservative voices in both the traditional and social media.

We have seen that social media platforms have a strong bias against limited government and traditional Canadian values. Many want to go so far as to control the public message through a combination of soft censorship, shadow banning and more overt methodologies designed to limit the reasonable discourse needed to come to informed conclusions. 

We need to come out against these activities. 

We also have to deal with, and reverse, the Liberal's proposed $660Mln CDN media bailout which, as outlined in the May 23rd, 2019 CBC News post, "Journalists question Liberal government's $600M media bailout plan," even causes concern within the group officially designated to receive the bailout funding.  

This fall, lets stand up and let the current crop of politicians know who is really in charge of this country. The people.

Mike Staffieri, the PPC Candidate for Eglinton Lawrence

          By Chuck Black

"I always liked Max Bernier for his Libertarian leanings, although I initially started out in the Ontario Liberal party, much like my parents," said Mike Staffieri, currently the Peoples Party of Canada (PPC) candidate for Eglinton-Lawrence in the upcoming fall Federal election.

Before joining the PPC, Staffieri contributed to the Ontario Libertarian Party, where he ran as the Libertarian candidate for Eglinton-Lawrence during the 2018 provincial election.

According to Staffieri, his roots in Eglinton-Laurence run deep. He's the son of Italian immigrants who've lived in the riding for over 50 years and started his business career delivering newspapers on Glengrove and Glen Park. In the winter, he shoveled local snow for $5 bucks a driveway and continues to visit his mother in the riding every Sunday for dinner (his father passed away six years ago). Photo c/o PPC Eglinton Laurence.

Staffieri also served a stint as a member of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), where he supported Bernier against current Conservative leader Andrew Scheer during the 2017 Conservative leadership election.

"I joined the Conservatives specifically to support Maxime in his leadership bid and, much like Bernier, I left the party after Scheer won," Staffieri said.

But his loyalty during that campaign was noted and the local riding association recently reconnected with Staffieri to see if he'd consider running under the PPC banner.

Staffieri said yes:

I’ve watched the Canadian political landscape for many years and am now dismayed at how much politicians are pandering to special interest groups for votes at the expense of the individual. 

I’m dismayed that Canadians work over five months out of the year just to pay for all the levels of government we're told we need. I’m dismayed on how expensive it is to raise a family in Canada. I’m dismayed at the number of regulations thwarting business startups. I am dismayed at the governments attack on free speech, a right protected under the Charter. 

Government has become an overweight, overreaching behemoth in this country; public masters instead of public servants. 

This is why I am running for the PPC: to help keep more money in your pockets, reduce government spending like corporate bailouts and foreign aid, to protect Canadian sovereignty from foreign bureaucratic intervention (UN Immigration and Climate Pact) and to increase prosperity for all Canadians.

According to Wikipedia, Eglinton—Lawrence "stretches from Yonge Street in the east to Caledonia in the west and from Highway 401 in the north to Eglinton Avenue in the south." As per the 2016 Federal Census, the riding has "the highest percentage of people of Polish ethnic origin (12.0%) and the second-highest percentage of people of Jewish ethnic origin (5.1%). In the 2011 National Household Survey more than 15% of the residents of Eglinton—Lawrence filled in a Jewish ethnic origin." Graphic c/o Wikipedia.

Staffieri has a bachelors degree in business and a professional designation as a nutritionist. He's owned and operated a vitamin distribution company for over thirteen years. Prior to that, he worked in middle management, as a trainer, recruiter and sales executive in the Fortune 500 IT industry.

He also understands the range of ethnic groups who've settled in the riding over the decades and notes that, with so many different cultures and perspectives, everyone needs to be able to speak freely to compare notes, learn from each other and understand the constraints and concerns we all operate under.

"Shut down free speech and you make it far more difficult for everyone to understand others and talk freely and frankly. Free speech is my #1 issue going into the next election." he feels.

"If you're going to promote the causes of the minorities, you need to be for the individual. After all, the individual is the smallest minority," according to Staffieri. "My personal values can be summed as follows. Don’t hurt people, don’t take their stuff, take responsibility, work for it and mind your business. These are values I believe all Canadians have."

"It’s our shared values that make us strong as a nation."

Went to See Maxime Bernier and the Peoples Party of Canada at a Bar in Toronto on Thursday Night

PPC leader Bernier and the author at a bar last Thursday. Photo c/o Chuck Black.

          By Chuck Black

Maxime Bernier gave a rousing speech, shook a lot of hands (including mine) and talked about the issues of the day with the 200 or so people in attendance at a May 2nd, 2019 Peoples Party of Canada (PPC) event in Toronto ON.

He even spoke with people from the "Yellow Vest movement," a loose network  who promote "a general sense of anger toward the Liberal government, and a range of other views from pro-oil to anti-immigration sentiments" according to the May 3rd, 2019 Global News post, "Maxime Bernier mingles with Yellow Vest protesters at Toronto event."

And while there is certainly nothing wrong with being open to civil discussion with individuals and activists of all stripes, it does seem a little odd for the Global News article to categorize people likely to vote against the Liberal government as "people who promote a general sense of anger toward the Liberal government."

After all, members of the Conservatives, the Peoples Party of Canada, the NDP and even the Green Party all promote a "general sense of anger towards the Liberal party" if only because there's an election coming up and each party hopes to defeat the government at the ballot box. This is what they're supposed to do. It's a part of a thriving democracy.

Anyway, a good time was held by all at the event. Here's hoping for many more in the run up to the next election.

If anyone from the Liberal party or Global News shows up next time, I promise to buy them a beer, if only to diffuse that "general sense of anger" they seem to feel.

Just so long as I don't have to vote for them...