By: Greg Staley
Written On: 2025-02-26
What if the whole purpose of a political party was not to become elected but rather to stifle a real Conservative alternative? They’d likely hold strategy sessions against that party and badmouth the leader – and that’s exactly what the Ontario party did.
Brigitte Belton is a former candidate of the Ontario party and now she’s running for the New Blue party of Ontario. In an interview with Diverge Media, she told us she was “trained to hate Jim Karahalios.” She summarized the attacks from the Ontario Party against the New Blue leader as “Jim is bad and Derek is good.”
When Belton ran for the Ontario party, she didn’t know who Jim Karahalios was. When she attended the Ontario Party’s convention in April of 2022, they had a whole strategy session dedicated to the New Blue party.
Belton detailed how at the candidate convention, the now President of the Ontario Party, Tom Marazzo, told her that Karahalios wouldn’t merge the parties and “was only willing to do things his way and wouldn’t compromise.” This flies in the face of what Karahalios has told Diverge Media – that is, that Karahalios repeatedly reached out to Sloan to work together but was ignored.
Belton detailed how this training to hate Jim Karahalios and the New Blue party affected the candidates’ perceptions of the New Blue leader. She told Diverge Media that “one of the candidates had been New Blue and had defected to the Ontario Party” = Belton added that she “believed that was planned” but stated that it’s “her opinion.” The candidate that was speaking so terribly about Mr. Karahalios also admitted to Belton that “she’d never met him.” According to Belton, this incident took place a year and half after the election had taken place.
Belton said that the candidate lied to her about an alleged “toe the line agreement” that the New Blue had and that allegedly, you couldn’t deviate from what the party wanted you to say – “specifically Jim Karahalios.”
At the time, Belton believed this. That’s why when she needed a lawyer to represent her for her involvement at the Freedom Convoy, she was hesitant to reach out to the New Blue party leader, Jim Karahalios, even after a friend had suggested it.
“Here I am in a massive lawsuit (trucker convoy) and I’m getting told to talk to Jim and I didn’t want to because I thought the guy was rotten – that was the image they (Ontario Party) had created for me.”
She told Diverge Media that the alleged toe-the-line agreement “was one of the first things” she asked the New Blue leader about when considering using him as a lawyer and it was quickly debunked.
Karahalios showed her the candidate agreement to Belton and she concluded that it was a “very simple agreement – nothing anyone wouldn’t expect of a candidate.” Belton then described what it was like to meet the leader of the New Blue party. She described Karahalios as “very methodical and well-thought-out” and as a “professional in his career.”
Belton remembers walking away from the meeting thinking “Wow, did I ever have the wrong opinion of you.” She told Diverge Media that she felt horrible that people had made her feel so badly against Karahalios.
Looking back at her time in the Ontario party, Belton has reflected on just how big of an issue it was. “It was not just minor it was big issues. If the parties could’ve merged and taken more of the vote, in my riding alone we (New Blue) could’ve had 6 or 7 percent of the vote – that’s huge.”
This leads me to the conclusion of this article – the Ontario Party is simply a way to prevent a real Conservative alternative from taking root in Ontario. As the leader of the New Blue, Jim Karahalios said in a newsletter to supporters, “Derek isn’t trying to take on the Ontario PC Party – he’s trying to protect it from the New Blue Party of Ontario.”
To further this point, The Ontario Party prior to this election hadn’t posted on social media for two years. The party was deregistered as an official party after not filing their party paperwork after the 2022 election. Yet, we’re supposed to believe they’re a real alternative?
Still, after two years, the party has popped up again with their hands out asking for money and support but they haven’t done anything to earn it.
Perhaps that’s why the Ontario Party has brought in “representatives” who won’t run for the party but will be a mouthpiece for them like Randy Hillier – to give the illusion that they’re legitimate and draw on their name recognition.
This hasn’t fooled the former Ontario Party candidate Brigitte Belton however. When I asked why Belton had made the decision to run for the New Blue, she told us that she and her husband “both agreed things needed to change in Ontario – and we both agreed that Ontario Party wasn’t it.”
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