Guelph provincial candidate now running as an independent
NEWS May 18, 2018 by
Graeme McNaughton Guelph Mercury
A candidate looking to become Guelph’s next MPP is now running as an independent.
Thomas Mooney, who had originally been running for the Ontario Alliance Party, filed notice with Elections Ontario over the weekend of May 12 that he would no longer be running under a party label.
Multiple requests for comment were made to the Ontario Alliance Party for this story, but none were returned.
Mooney says his decision came after, without warning, the party dissolved its riding associations registered with Elections Ontario.
“My riding president, he got that email out of the blue,” Mooney says of an email sent by Elections Ontario on May 11.
“He wasn’t aware it was happening. Apparently the email went to Elections Ontario on May 5, and we just found out about it.”
According to an email sent by Richard Naranowicz, the chief financial officer of the Alliance, to Elections Ontario on May 5, the party was looking to voluntarily deregister the Guelph constituency association, along with Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill, Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Carleton, Cambridge and Oxford.
In an emailed response for comment from the Mercury Tribune, Elections Ontario said it was "not able to comment on ongoing registration or de-registration processes."
However, according to Elections Ontario's website, a number of candidates who had been looking to run for the Alliance in the aforementioned ridings are now registered as independents for next month's election.
Mooney says he had problems with the party leading up to the move to dissolve the Guelph riding association.
“I ended up filing a complaint with Elections Ontario because I was getting no co-operation from the chief financial officer, which was affecting my campaign,” he said, referring to Naranowicz.
“They’re supposed to be providing me the list of all the members that have signed up. Nothing, I received nothing.”
Mooney also says that, leading up to the dissolving of the riding associations, the party executive went radio silent, and he was unable to get a hold of anyone.
“They’re not answering the phone, they’re not responding to emails.”
This is not the first time that Mooney has had an issue with a party he was looking to represent. In August 2017, Mooney announced he was dropping out of the nomination race for the PC Party’s Guelph slot, citing his concerns that some candidates were being asked to drop out of the race.
“When other running mates are approached and asked to step down or step aside, and I see them as good candidates … I got into this political race because I believe something needs to be done, somebody strong,” Mooney told the Mercury Tribune at the time.
“There were some good candidates that were in Guelph that had put their names forward and the party is asking them to step aside. In my belief, that’s not for them to decide, that’s for the people in Guelph to be able to decide who’s going to be representing them.”
At the time, Mooney said he was looking at still running in the election, and would later decide to run for the upstart Ontario Alliance Party, formed last year.
The Alliance was founded by Jay Tysick, a candidate in the Carleton riding who says he was kicked out of the running by Patrick Brown, the leader of the PC Party at the time, after pointing out “shady business” in his local riding nomination.
After he went public with what happened, Tysick says he was contacted by PCs from across the province with reports of rigged nominations and resignations.
“I realized this was not just a local thing. I had become a lightning rod,” he told YorkRegion.com last year.
Tysick decided they should band together and fight back with a party of their own.
“If [Brown] is not going to address these very serious problems, if they’re already lying, cheating, corrupt, what will they do when they’re in government?”
For Mooney, the move to the Alliance was a chance to have someone handle the back end of things while he was out hitting the pavement.
“To me, being part of the Alliance was, quite literally, them looking after the background management of things while I was free to actually be here to represent,” he said.
“And that’s one of the benefits of being part of a party, so I can focus where I need to be focusing.”