By Staff
April 14th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
The organizers of the All Candidate meeting scheduled for 7:00 pm have advised federal election campaign teas that the event has been cancelled.
The Gazette received a tip two days ago that the event was going to be disrupted – the source was anonymous and could not be verified.
We passed the information along to the Regional Police and the church office.
In a statement released by the organizers they provided some detail:
With regret, the steering committee has decided to cancel the planned candidates meeting scheduled Monday April 14. The People’s Party of Canada has objected strongly to being excluded from the formal proceedings although they were invited to attend. We have become aware that they plan a protest in the form of a convoy starting in Hamilton and arriving at Port Nelson Church in Burlington and likely to disrupt the meeting in some way. We feel justifiably worried about the safety of people attending, and out of concern for neighbours of the church, the rest of the neighbourhood, the candidates and people planning to attend we feel that we have no choice but to cancel.
The meeting was organized and to be run by a steering committee of volunteers drawn from the Roseland Community Organization, Port Nelson United Church and the Roseland Park Country Club
This event was billed as an ‘all-candidates meeting’. In fact, the candidates representing only 4 of the 7 parties running in Burlington were invited to be part of the formal proceedings. There are 16 parties registered with elections Canada to run candidates in 2025. We needed to plan the event well before the final deadline for candidates to register, so we had no way of knowing how extensive the list of candidates for the riding would be. The steering committee therefor felt that we had to establish in advance fair and consistent criteria to be applied now and in the future in deciding who to invite to participate. We decided to use the criteria established by the non-partisan, federal, Leaders’ Debates Commission which oversees the televised debates.
That commission established three criteria, and a party must meet two of the three to be invited.
The criteria are:
Having at least one sitting member of parliament
Have endorsed candidates in at least 90% of ridings
Be polling at or above 4% in recognized national polls
The parties of the candidates invited tonight meet those criteria.
We believe these criteria are fair and reasonable.
There are three other parties with candidates running in this riding. They are Michael Bator, representing the People’s Party of Canada, Paul Harper, representing the Rhinoceros party, and Ocean Marshall representing the Libertarian Party. These three candidates were invited to be present and provide campaign materials and be available to speak to voters at the conclusion of the formal events. The same opportunity has been made available to all the candidates.
It is our opinion that in providing this platform for the parties not part of the formal proceedings, we have given them an excellent opportunity to engage with voters. We would be interested in knowing whether any other citizens group has afforded them the same opportunity.
It is also worth noting that we are a private group of citizens and not aligned with or receiving funding from any outside group. As such, quite frankly, we were free to establish whatever rules and issue whatever invitations were inclined to issue. We have conducted candidates’ meetings at the municipal, provincial and federal level and have done our very best to be fair in doing so.
As far as we know, we are the only group conducting these meetings open to the public, which we think is a shame.
Whether as part of the question-and-answer proceedings or not, we have given all seven parties running candidates in our riding the opportunity to engage with voters which we believe is a great service to the voters of this riding.
It is ironic that although we were being accused of a ‘denial of free speech’ (their words) by PPC, it is in fact they who by their actions are denying voters of the opportunity to be fully informed. It is also ironic that, by their actions, they are denying themselves a platform to reach voters which is likely better than any other available to them in this riding.
I live about a 7 minutes from the church I was looking forward to the candidates meeting. But unfortunately PPC stopped a debate from happening
I had some questions for the candidates about the Canadian disability benefit
And how it’s been underfunded has too much red tape and can be clawed back by provincial governments if they see fit
It’s a shame we’re losing our democracy to a bunch of bullies
We lost our democracy after the illegal use of the Emergencies Act
Here is a statement released by the organizing committee:
With regret, the steering committee has decided to cancel the planned candidates meeting scheduled Monday April 14. The People’s Party of Canada has objected strongly to being excluded from the formal proceedings although they were invited to attend. We have become aware that they plan a protest in the form of a convoy starting in Hamilton and arriving at Port Nelson Church in Burlington and likely to disrupt the meeting in some way. We feel justifiably worried about the safety of people attending, and out of concern for neighbours of the church, the rest of the neighbourhood, the candidates and people planning to attend we feel that we have no choice but to cancel.
The meeting was organized and to be run by a steering committee of volunteers drawn from the Roseland Community Organization, Port Nelson United Church and the Roseland Park Country Club
This event was billed as an ‘all-candidates meeting’. In fact, the candidates representing only 4 of the 7 parties running in Burlington were invited to be part of the formal proceedings. There are 16 parties registered with elections Canada to run candidates in 2025. We needed to plan the event well before the final deadline for candidates to register, so we had no way of knowing how extensive the list of candidates for the riding would be. The steering committee therefore felt that we had to establish in advance fair and consistent criteria to be applied now and in the future in deciding who to invite to participate. We decided to use the criteria established by the non-partisan, federal, Leaders’ Debates Commission which oversees the televised debates.
That commission established three criteria, and a party must meet two of the three to be invited.
The criteria are:
Having at least one sitting member of parliament
Have endorsed candidates in at least 90% of ridings
Be polling at or above 4% in recognized national polls
The parties of the candidates invited tonight meet those criteria.
We believe these criteria are fair and reasonable.
There are three other parties with candidates running in this riding. They are Michael Bator, representing the People’s Party of Canada, Paul Harper, representing the Rhinoceros party, and Ocean Marshall representing the Libertarian Party. These three candidates were invited to be present and provide campaign materials and be available to speak to voters at the conclusion of the formal events. The same opportunity has been made available to all the candidates.
It is our opinion that in providing this platform for the parties not part of the formal proceedings, we have given them an excellent opportunity to engage with voters. We would be interested in knowing whether any other citizens group has afforded them the same opportunity.
It is also worth noting that we are a private group of citizens and not aligned with or receiving funding from any outside group. We have conducted candidates’ meetings at the municipal, provincial and federal level and have done our very best to be fair in doing so.
As far as we know, we are the only group conducting these meetings open to the public, which we think is a shame.
Whether as part of the question-and-answer proceedings or not, we have given all seven parties running candidates in our riding the opportunity to engage with voters which we believe is a great service to the voters of this riding.
It is ironic that although we were being accused of a ‘denial of free speech’ (their words) by PPC, it is in fact they who by their actions are denying voters of the opportunity to be fully informed. It is also ironic that, by their actions, they are denying themselves a platform to reach voters which is likely better than any other available to them in this riding.
Have police and rebook this event.
All of these acronyms can get very confusing for some. I often see them being used incorrectly. PC is the Progressive Conservatives who are the Provincial Party.
CPC is the Conservative Party of Canada which is Federal.
The PPC is (who is mentioned in this article) is a Federal party called the People’s Party of Canada. Currently they do not hold any seats in the House of Commons.
Interesting…..we should be given more information however I doubt that we will just like the takeover of Ottawa and arrests this weekend go virtually unreported.
There is a document circulating online purported to be issued by the Government of Canada on letterhead that is apparently circulating among the inmates of correctional facilities in Ontario.
This document outlines the election platform for the Conservative Party which includes their proposed changes to three strikes, life sentences and so on.
If this is in fact happening and is factual it should be grounds for declaring any result of the upcoming federal election null and void. It would be stunning, jaw dropping in fact.
I am at a loss for words, an infrequent occurrence. Perhaps the Editor can shed light on this.
Editor’s note: Disinformation
How you see this as grounds “for declaring any result of the upcoming federal election null and void”, is jaw dropping.
As a Burlington resident I was looking forward to hearing where each candidate stands on crime and punishment. Personally, I believe rising crime is an issue that should concern all Burlington citizens and needs a federal response with policy changes. This was the perfect forum to hear how each party is positioned in the matter of keeping our families and community safe.