By Mike Renzella
The Haldimand Press
HALDIMAND—When Diane Finley announced her retirement earlier this year, long-time Conservative member and Dunnville resident Mike Ramsey was envisioning the type of nomination race he remembers taking place prior to Finley.
“We have wonderful Conservative people that could have made this something really special in the riding. I have experienced it…. (The nomination meetings) packed the Hagersville high school. There would be 600 to 700 people there and there would be debates and speeches and that’s where you got to know the fellow Conservatives across the riding. Even Liberals would go to them to see what it was all about,” reminisced Ramsey, one of several local residents who considered putting their name on the ticket this year but found Leslyn Lewis to be quickly acclaimed uncontested.
Mike Ramsey
“It’s not about the nomination. It’s about the process of bringing out the best in our area to debate, to talk … and you wasted an opportunity to hear from really good people that could have offered some insight and information and direction for the area,” continued Ramsey.
Ramsey stressed that he is not necessarily against Lewis, but against her representing Haldimand specifically: “She could be a very big, powerful voice in the GTA…. They’re letting her come down to a rural area because it is an easy win, but what good is that for Toronto where the Conservatives struggle to get seats? This is not about her personally. I like her, she’s a good person, but she’s not fit for this area.”
Cayuga resident James S. Kaspersetz was also planning to step up and take a run at the nomination. Kaspersetz grew up on a farm in Canfield and attended Ontario Agricultural College before working as a financial consultant for the Royal Bank, which led him to doing some consulting work for the Ministry of the Environment where he became a Senior Environmental Specialist. With his experience, Kaspersetz felt he had the necessary skills to make a difference at home.
“The people of Haldimand Norfolk do not need another lawyer in Ottawa. They need someone who is entrepreneurial and thinks outside of the box,” said Kaspersetz.
Ramsey is a similarly qualified candidate with decades of local experience under his belt. In addition to having a local business in Dunnville, Ramsey has sat on municipal Council, represented Dunnville at Queen’s Park, sat on many commissions and provincial appointments, and he was the President of the local Conservative party in the early 1990s.
Ramsey was feeling that the time may be right to put his name in the mix as a nominee to be the next federal Conservative candidate, but when he started asking around, he found that getting his name on the ballot would be no easy feat.
“I attempted to run. I got the papers and I talked to some party officials from Ottawa privately and I could smell something was coming down the pipes,” explained Ramsey. “That’s why I never put the papers in. I could tell there was something off.”
James Kaspersetz
Kaspersetz described the process as being “designed to discourage first-time runners.” He cited the two-week deadline to submit his nomination package that included over 90 pages of questions and required supporting signatures from 25 members of the local Conservative party.
“Leslyn had run for the leadership of the party months before, and she had a distinct advantage because she had the riding information, the membership lists, the contacts (from that race),” said Ramsey. “I was told by Ottawa that when you run for leadership at the end, you are supposed to give the information back and sign an agreement that you are not going to use that information again. My question is, how did Leslyn get all that information because under the rules of this riding, the membership list was not allowed to be given out.”
“If you’re not going to give the membership list out, how are you supposed to get the 25 signatures? They say if you’re a member you should know the members of the association. First of all, there are no general meetings and if there are it’s a handful of people, once a year. There’s no information coming out about what’s going on with the local party.”
“It’s pretty obvious when you look at the people that wanted to run, the other people that have spoken up, they had no idea where to look. You call the riding president and they say they can’t tell you who (the members) are, you just have to go and find them. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack 25 times and you’ve got two weeks to do it,” stated Ramsey, noting that gathering signatures was complicated further by COVID-19 limitations.
Ramsey and Kaspersetz also do not agree with the Conservative party requirement that a campaign bank account be set up prior to submitting a nomination as it is not required by Elections Canada.
“That’s a party rule, but I’d ask the question, what’s the sense of setting up a bank account when you’re not a candidate yet?” asked Ramsey.
As reported previously, Albert Marshall’s nomination application was denied because he lacked this account to pay the required $1,000 fee, and a representative of the Party stated that the Party’s rules were made clear to Marshall. The representative also stated that the deadline for applications being two weeks after the nomination is officially called is also set in stone by Party rules; however, no explanation was provided as to why the nomination was called when it was.
Lewis publicly announced her intention to apply for the nomination approximately two weeks before the process was officially started, and had announced plans to run in an undisclosed location earlier this summer.
Kaspersetz claims he contacted Diane Finley’s office for help with his nomination package but was turned away by a staff member: “I asked if we could get together and discuss the process. He basically said I needed to be more organized like Lewis. He commented that Lewis was the preferred choice; she had a team already in place from the leadership race.”
Ramsey feels the most important factor should be previous local involvement: “You have to pay your dues. You have to sit on Council, you have to be on the Chamber of Commerce, you have to sit on these community committees and raise funds for your local hospital to understand how this community runs.”
Ramsey recalls a similar situation 20 years ago when Finley came into power.
“There was no challenge for the candidacy. It was done very quickly and (Finley) got it. I was a party member, never even knew it was going on,” said Ramsey. “All of a sudden it has happened again and (Finley) had a hand in it.”
Kaspersetz also believes Finley put her support behind Lewis as she is “what Ottawa wanted”.
“If I had been President of the Haldimand Norfolk Conservative party, I would have damn made sure that every person that wanted to run knew the nominations were coming,” said Ramsey. “They should have worked hard to make that happened, but they didn’t.”
Kaspersetz says the Conservative Party has lost his support and he is considering either running independently or putting together a new party and running a counter block.
