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Infighting, miscommunication led to Parry Sound-Muskoka People’s Party branch failure to launch

MUSKOKA,ON- It appears that infighting and a lack of communication led to the withdrawal of the People’s Party of Canada in Parry Sound-Muskoka from the upcoming federal election.

Earlier this week, the MyMuskokaNow.com newsroom reported that the party would not be fielding a candidate in the riding for this election, after the withdrawal of Michelle Smith from the contest.

According to Elections Canada, the failure of the party to have a candidate registered by September 30th puts them out of the running in the riding for this election.

After the story ran, Smith reached out to us, providing correspondence sent out to members of the local party branch by local organizer Tracey Bobyk, which appeared to show Bobyk launching an effort of her own to be the registered candidate around September 28th.

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Smith indicated that she became “disheartened” after a dispute over the price of campaign signs, and decided to stop investing in the election effort.  Smith also stated she had pulled out after receiving emails from Bobyk during her drive to be the candidate.

While she said she didn’t want to “bash” the party too much, she stated they don’t support their candidates.

Comment on Smith’s claims was sought from Bobyk, who directed the newsroom towards Adam Gray, the Ontario organizer of the party and candidate for the riding of Hastings Lennox and Addington.

According to Gray, Bobyk had been acting in reaction to a perceived lack of action by Smith. He also said that Smith had never gone to the party with any concerns.

“I started contacting her at the end of August, to find out how her signatures were coming, never ever heard back from her,” said Gray.

“Headquarters also tried for the last two weeks to reach Ms. Smith, she never ever answered us. So we had no idea what was going on.”

According to Gray, efforts to reach Smith were ongoing until the 28th.

“We kept trying to call her,” said Gray.

“We couldn’t remove her, because we didn’t know what was going on. So, if she was doing the job properly, that would be great, but we found out that she wasn’t. On the 29th, after our treasurer contacted me and said here is an article (on her drop-out) you need to read, that’s when I called Tracey and asked if she could get 150 signatures required to run.”

Gray said that Bobyk was already at work for the night at the time.

“We didn’t have a chance,” said Gray.

“We really had no chance. Ms. Smith left us to the last minute, to ensure that we could not run somebody else in that place.”

He said there has been no clarification from Smith on why she dropped out, beyond a message about Bobyk’s efforts to become the candidate.

“We feel this is a deliberate attempt to keep the PPC off the ballot in Parry Sound-Muskoka, and we’re very disappointed in the actions of Ms. Smith,” said Gray.

He believed the lesson learned from the whole experience was for the party to do better background checks in the future.

“When you’re rushing through, and you have one year to create the districts across Canada, to find proper candidates, to screen them, to interview them, and to attempt them, some people get through the cracks that shouldn’t,” said Gray.

He said there had been no reasons to doubt Smith when she first approached the party to run, and that he was always under the impression that they were in good shape. He indicated that he always tells candidates that if they have any issues, they could come to him.

They could resolve the issue, or “separate respectfully”.

“Ms. Smith did not show us that respect, and we’re very disappointed in the way it that turned out, especially for our members in Parry Sound-Muskoka,” said Gray.

The five confirmed candidates in the riding are Scott Aitchison for the Conservatives, Trisha Cowie for the Liberals, Tom Young for the NDP, Gord Miller for the Greens, and Daniel Predie Jr as an independent.

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