Freedom Party of Ontario
Encyclopedia
The Freedom Party of Ontario is a provincial political party in Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It was founded on January 1, 1984 in London, Ontario
London, Ontario
London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, situated along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. The city has a population of 352,395, and the metropolitan area has a population of 457,720, according to the 2006 Canadian census; the metro population in 2009 was estimated at 489,274. The city...

 by Robert Metz and Marc Emery
Marc Emery
Marc Scott Emery is a Canadian cannabis policy reform advocate, as well as a former cannabis seed seller. He is currently serving a five year sentence in a United States federal prison for selling cannabis seeds....

, as a successor to the Unparty.

The Freedom Party has fielded candidates in every provincial election since 1985, and in several by-elections. It has also participated in numerous public policy debates, often on contentious social issues.

Ideology

The Freedom Party of Ontario is an affiliate of Freedom Party International, which was formed by some members of the Freedom Party of Ontario executive in 2002. Freedom Party promotes capitalism on the ground that it is the only social system compatible with reality, reason, rational self-interest, and consent. Freedom Party is opposed to attempts to promote capitalism with appeals to altruistic, irrational (e.g., faith, group consensus), or supernatural rationale. Freedom Party's policy direction is founded upon Objectivist
Objectivism (Ayn Rand)
Objectivism is a philosophy created by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand . Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception...

 philosophy. As such, the party rejects and condemns libertarianism
Libertarianism and Objectivism
Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism has been and continues to be a major influence towards the libertarian movement. Many libertarians justify their political views upon aspects of Objectivism...

. Freedom Party of Ontario's current leader, Paul McKeever, has written several explanations, and made several videos, explaining why Objectivism condemns and rejects libertarianism, and why he and Freedom Party of Ontario do so as well (see, for example, his article Reason and Freedom vs. The Liberty Summer Seminar. Instead of embracing the libertarian motto that "the government that governs least governs best", the Freedom Party asserts that "the purpose of government is to defend every individual's freedom, not to restrict it."

1980-1983: The Unparty

In 1980, some former members of the Ontario Libertarian Party
Ontario Libertarian Party
The Ontario Libertarian Party is a political party in Ontario, Canada that was founded in 1975 by Bruce Evoy, Vince Miller, and others, inspired by the formation three years earlier of the US Libertarian Party. The Party is guided by adherence to the philosophical ideas of Austrian Economics and...

 (Lisa Butler, former OLP chair Mary Lou Gutscher, Bill McDonald and Paul Wakfer past-president of the Libertarian Party of Canada
Libertarian Party of Canada
The Libertarian Party of Canada is a political party in Canada that subscribes to the tenets of the libertarian movement across Canada.-History:...

 (LPC) who had spent many months of his time and considerable money to get the LPC registered by running 50 federal candidates, yet who was then summarily expelled from the LPC) all of whom left the current libertarian parties because of fundamental disagreements, founded the Unparty. A major reason for its founding was that all of the founders had become market anarchist by that time in their libertarian thinking, and decided that the only ethical political action was to seek to abolish the offices of the State. Therefore, the major thrust of the Unparty (and the reason for the name) was that any of its candidates that were elected would refuse to take their salary and would do nothing but vote against all legislation to expand or maintain the State.

The party was based in Toronto, and collected the required voter signatures to register the Unparty in Ontario and in Alberta, as well as qualify as a provincial party in New Brunswick. Successful public campaigns were run by Unparty members, attracting national news coverage. These included a protest against the census and a highly publicized defense of property rights with Unparty members attempting to prevent the government's forced demolition of a private home. (The official 'reason' for the government's actions was that the owner had not acquired a building permit for renovations made to his own property. According to the Unparty, this action, although apparently legal on the part of the government, was travesty of justice.)

Counter to most political parties, the Unparty was founded more like a partnership than a democracy, based on the premise that the members were customers who would continue their support so long as progress was being made, and that it was up to the leadership of the executive to provide that value, albeit with input from the members. This organizational structure, along with the official registration status of the Unparty in Ontario was what appealed to the leaders of the Unparty's London Constituency Associations, which had been, until that time, the most active and most visible of the Unparty groups outside of the head office itself.

So in 1983, after most of the Unparty executive had gone their separate ways, Robert Metz and Marc Emery
Marc Emery
Marc Scott Emery is a Canadian cannabis policy reform advocate, as well as a former cannabis seed seller. He is currently serving a five year sentence in a United States federal prison for selling cannabis seeds....

 of London, Ontario offered to take over control and management of the Unparty, with the promise that they would keep the Unparty going forever (a promise that Robert Metz has continued to keep to this day). Control of the organization was handed over to them with confidence based on their earlier success in organizing the Unparty in their electoral districts. Shortly after that, they refounded the party as the Freedom Party, gave it a new political agenda and a new head office in London, Ontario. On October 19, 1983, the party was renamed the Freedom Party of Ontario.

1983-2002

The FpO was best known during the 1980s for its campaigns against censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

 and provincial laws that restricted Sunday shopping
Sunday shopping
Sunday shopping refers to the ability of retailers to operate stores on Sunday, a day that Christian tradition typically recognizes as the Sabbath, a "day of rest". Rules governing shopping hours, such as Sunday shopping, vary around the world but some European nations continue to ban Sunday shopping...

. Robert Metz, the party's first president, spoke for the FpO in 1987 when he argued that the Sunday shopping debate was fundamentally about freedom of choice for the retailer and consumer. Leading FpO members also opposed legal restrictions on pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...

 that depicts consensual sex between consenting adults, and opposed the prohibition of marijuana, arguing that the state did not have the right to legislate in such matters.

On economic issues, the FpO supported tax reductions and opposed provincial welfare programs. It was also critical of the Ontario Human Rights Commission
Ontario Human Rights Commission
The Ontario Human Rights Commission was established in the Canadian province of Ontario on March 29, 1961 to administer the Ontario Human Rights Code...

 and of affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...

 programs. Some prominent former members of Voice of Canadians
Voice of Canadians
Voice of Canadians was a right-wing political advocacy group that existed in Canada during the 1990s. Based in Ontario, it opposed official multiculturalism and official bilingualism. Some of its leading members, including chairman Dick Field, later joined the Freedom Party of Ontario....

, a now-defunct group that opposed official multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...

 and official bilingualism
Official bilingualism
Official bilingualism refers to the policy adopted by some states of recognizing two languages as official and producing all official documents, and handling all correspondence and official dealings, including Court procedure, in the two said languages...

, have affiliated with the FpO since the 1990s.

Metz became the first official leader of the party in 1987, and served until 1994 when he was replaced by Jack Plant. Plant stepped down in 1997, and was replaced by Lloyd Walker. All of the party's leaders between 1987 and 2002 were from London, and the party's activities were organized primarily from that city. The party newsletter, Freedom Flyer, was published on an occasional basis, and back copies are now available online.

The Freedom Party has opposed government restrictions on free speech and freedom of expression throughout its existence, arguing that the state has no right to intervene except in cases of fraud, defamation, or the commission of crimes such as sex with children. Marc Emery
Marc Emery
Marc Scott Emery is a Canadian cannabis policy reform advocate, as well as a former cannabis seed seller. He is currently serving a five year sentence in a United States federal prison for selling cannabis seeds....

 frequently challenged Canada's censorship laws during his years as an FpO organizer, via the private bookstore he operated in London. He continued to do so after resigning from FpO in 1990.

The FpO took a civil libertarian stance on hate speech
Hate speech
Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic....

 and the rights of individuals to express political opinions, whether those opinions are rational or irrational, unoffensive or offensive, popular or unpopular. In 1999, the London, Ontario police wrote to Raphael Bergmann and Tyler Chilcott stating that they were members of an alleged group that the letter called the Northern Alliance. The letter stated that, as they belonged to an "extreme right-wing" group they were "required" to report to the police to explain their opinions. The FpO's then leader, Lloyd Walker requested that Solicitor-General David Tsubouchi
David Tsubouchi
is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 2003, and was a cabinet minister in the governments of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves.-Education:...

 provide a list of "extreme" political beliefs that could result in such police action. No response was provided by the government, and nothing more came of the matter. here. Bergmann and Chilcott were never FpO members and the party did not support their views, simply their right to express them.

Since 2002

The party has been partly restructured since 2002, when Oshawa
Oshawa
Oshawa is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the Lake Ontario shoreline. It lies in Southern Ontario approximately 60 kilometres east of downtown Toronto. It is commonly viewed as the eastern anchor of both the Greater Toronto Area and the Golden Horseshoe. It is now commonly referred to as the most...

 lawyer Paul McKeever
Paul McKeever
Paul McKeever leads the Freedom Party of Ontario and the unregistered Freedom Party of Canada, two political parties advocating laissez-faire capitalism. McKeever graduated from Trent University with an Honours Bachelor of Science in 1989 and a Master of Arts from the University of Western Ontario...

 replaced Walker as party leader. McKeever argues that the FpO is now targeted toward building an electoral base and that a new organization, Freedom Party International, has taken on its prior advocacy role. FPI now publishes the former FpO journal, Consent.

The FpO promoted an electoral platform entitled "The Right Direction" for the 2003 election
Ontario general election, 2003
The Ontario general election of 2003 was held on October 2, 2003, to elect the 103 members of the 38th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

, arguing that with the PCs turning away from Mike Harris
Mike Harris
Michael Deane "Mike" Harris was the 22nd Premier of Ontario from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He is most noted for the "Common Sense Revolution", his Progressive Conservative government's program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and cuts to government...

's Common Sense Revolution
Common Sense Revolution
The phrase Common Sense Revolution has been used as a political slogan to describe common sense conservative platforms in Australia and the U.S. state of New Jersey in the 1990s. Based on the Singapore Model of economics, its main goal is to reduce taxes while balancing the budget by reducing the...

, the FpO was the only remaining party with "common sense".

On October 4, 2005, the Freedom Party released its 2007 election
Ontario general election, 2007
The Ontario general election of 2007 was held on October 10, 2007 to elect members of the 39th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada. The Liberals under Dalton McGuinty won the election with a majority government, winning 71 out of a possible 107 seats with 42.2% of the popular...

 platform. It focused on competition in health care and education, repealing price controls on electricity, the replacement of property taxes with consumption tax
Consumption tax
A consumption tax is a tax on spending on goods and services. The tax base of such a tax is the money spent on consumption. Consumption taxes are usually indirect, such as a sales tax or a value added tax...

es, and the elimination of the provincial income tax.

The FpO is affiliated with the Freedom Party of Canada
Freedom Party of Canada
The Freedom Party of Canada was founded on July 20, 2001 by Paul McKeever and Robert Metz...

, an unregistered political party which was founded by Paul McKeever and Robert Metz on July 20, 2001. It is also affiliated with Freedom Party International, which is not a political party but an organization founded to advocate and promote the party's philosophy, and to serve as the authority that must be consulted by any persons wishing to form an affiliated political party. FpO, FpC, FpUSA and FpI are not affiliated with the Freedom Party of British Columbia, the Freedom Party of Manitoba
Freedom Party of Manitoba
The Freedom Party of Manitoba is a provincial political party in Manitoba, Canada. The party was created in the mid-1980s as the Libertarian Party of Manitoba, and formally changed its name to the Manitoba Marijuana Party in early 2005 and in 2007 became the Freedom Party of Manitoba...

 or any other parties styled as "Freedom Party".

Election results

Year of election # of candidates # of seats won # of votes % of popular vote
1985
Ontario general election, 1985
The Ontario general election of 1985 was held on May 2, 1985, to elect members of the 33rd Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada...

3 0 1,583 0.04%
1987
Ontario general election, 1987
The Ontario general election of 1987 was held on September 10, 1987, to elect members of the 34th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada.The governing Ontario Liberal Party, led by David Peterson, was returned to power with a large majority...

9 0 4,735 0.13%
1990
Ontario general election, 1990
The Ontario general election of 1990 was held on September 6, 1990, to elect members of the 35th Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, Canada....

10 0 6,015 0.15%
1995
Ontario general election, 1995
The Ontario general election of 1995 was held on June 8, 1995, to elect members of the 36th Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, Canada...

11 0 4,532 0.11%
1999
Ontario general election, 1999
An Ontario general election was held on June 3, 1999, to elect members of the 37th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

14 0 4,806 0.11%
2003
Ontario general election, 2003
The Ontario general election of 2003 was held on October 2, 2003, to elect the 103 members of the 38th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada....

24 0 8,376 0.19%
2007
Ontario general election, 2007
The Ontario general election of 2007 was held on October 10, 2007 to elect members of the 39th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada. The Liberals under Dalton McGuinty won the election with a majority government, winning 71 out of a possible 107 seats with 42.2% of the popular...

15 0 3,003 0.07%
2011
Ontario general election, 2011
The 40th Ontario general election was held on October 6, 2011 to elect members of the 40th Legislative Assembly of Ontario. The Ontario Liberal Party will form a minority government, with the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario serving as the Official Opposition and the Ontario New...

56 0 9,285 0.22%

Source: Elections Ontario Website
  • March 31, 1988 provincial by-election
    By-election
    A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....

     - London North
    London North
    London North was a provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada. It was first created for the 1926 provincial election when the London riding was divided in two sections, and then eliminated prior to the 1934 provincial election when the city was re-configured as a single seat...

    , 548 votes (1.7%), fifth of six candidates
  • November 3, 1988 provincial by-election - Welland—Thorold
    Welland—Thorold
    Welland—Thorold is a former provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada. It was created for the 1977 provincial election, and lasted until provincial redistribution in 1996. The riding was formally retired with the 1999 provincial election....

    , 260 votes (0.9%), fourth of five candidates
  • April 1, 1993 provincial by-election - Don Mills
    Don Mills (electoral district)
    Don Mills was a provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada. It was created for the 1963 provincial election, and lasted until the provincial redistribution on 1996. The riding was formally retired with the 1999 provincial election...

    , 161 votes (0.9%), seventh of eight candidates
  • November 24, 2005 provincial by-election - Scarborough—Rouge River
    Scarborough—Rouge River
    Scarborough—Rouge River is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 1988....

    , 59 votes (0.4%), sixth of six candidates.
  • March 31, 2006 provincial by-elections:
    • Toronto—Danforth
      Toronto—Danforth
      Toronto—Danforth is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 1979. It lies to the east of Downtown Toronto....

      , 93 votes, (0.3%), sixth of nine candidates
    • Whitby—Ajax
      Whitby—Ajax
      Whitby—Ajax was a federal and provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada. It was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1997 to 2003, and the in Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1999 to 2007...

      , 198 votes, (0.6%), fifth of seven candidates (FpO candidate was party leader Paul McKeever)
    • Nepean—Carleton
      Nepean—Carleton
      Nepean—Carleton is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1979 to 1988 and since 1997....

      , 74 votes, (0.2%), sixth of six candidates
  • September 14, 2006 provincial by-election - Parkdale—High Park
    Parkdale—High Park (provincial electoral district)
    Parkdale—High Park is a provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario since 1999....

    , 111 votes (0.4%), seventh of eight candidates

Party leaders

  1. Robert Metz (1987–1994)
  2. Jack Plant (1994–1997)
  3. Lloyd Walker (1997–2002)
  4. Paul McKeever
    Paul McKeever
    Paul McKeever leads the Freedom Party of Ontario and the unregistered Freedom Party of Canada, two political parties advocating laissez-faire capitalism. McKeever graduated from Trent University with an Honours Bachelor of Science in 1989 and a Master of Arts from the University of Western Ontario...

     (2002-)


(Note: The party did not have an official leader from 1984 to 1987. Robert Metz was its president during this period. Lloyd Walker was initially chosen as leader on an interim basis.)

See also


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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