Nepean Needs Better Candidates

The three big party riding associations in Nepean are in disarray. They have made critical mistakes in their candidate selection and over the next three months I intend to demonstrate why I am the best candidate for Nepean.

John Baird is gone. He certainly wasn’t my cup of tea but he was competent, local and committed to Nepean. No one has his pedigree, but I grew up here, I went to school here, I started my own company, I’m active in the community and I am raising a family here, in Nepean. The other candidates and parties are disappointing.

At the Conservative nomination meeting, Andy Wang and his contingent overwhelmed the old-guard support behind Bob Plamondon, who had endorsements from Peter MacKay, Marjory Lebreton, Vern White, as well as John Baird, who cast his ballot in person. The problem with this maneuver is the risk of a split within the Nepean Conservative ranks. Change happens, but what took place looks like a perversion of democracy to appoint a candidate that Pierre Poilievre can control.

Liberal Chandra Arya is great on paper: a former Invest Ottawa board member, investor, business leader. He won his nomination with the support of a group that has been active in the party riding association for years, but it is his resume that concerns me. If Arya’s business acumen is his greatest asset, why does his career profile lack the details of what companies he actually worked for? Name the businesses he’s participated in, where they were located, and what they did. Nepean voters don’t want an International Man of Mystery - they want an independent thinker they can relate to.

The NDP’s website has only recently been updated from a generic placeholder to an NDP-branded placeholder. It’s a slick Central Party design waiting for a candidate. The association has less than two months to find someone to step up as their token candidate. By now, they should have found someone who represents the riding.

Conservatives bent and possibly broke rules to select a mouthpiece of a mouthpiece as their candidate. Liberals replaced Nour El Kadri (a well documented Syrian Nazi) with a secretive business person. And the NDP are looking desperate for lack of a candidate. So here I am - the local and the only returning candidate, a five-year member of the Green Shadow Cabinet (Small Business and Entrepreneurship), the fiscal hawk of the party, and I am utterly disappointed with my competition in Nepean.

My advice to fellow readers: grab the popcorn, because the Nepean race is going to be a show.

Edit: [2015-08-05 12:51] added "is" to "...race is going to be..."  also added links to public sources of Nour El Kadri.