Although Ontario Libertarian candidate Tamara Johnson did not win a seat in the Superior-North riding of Thunder Bay, her words still worry community members.
On the Tuesday before Thursday’s Ontario election, Johnson ran a full-page ad in Thunder Bay’s Chronicle-Journal where she unveiled her party’s thoughts on Indigenous Canada.
In essence, it asked potential voters to, “stop the doctrine of entitlement” and stated, “No group of people ‘own’ Crown lands. Crown lands are public lands. No native lands.”
Of the Thursday June 12, 2014 election, Johnson received 922 votes, a fact that stunned Major Hobbs (the winning Liberals won with 15,503 votes.)
Of course, we all know that evil prevails when good people do nothing.
Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs said during a press conference the afternoon after the election that he categorically rejects “damaging statements” made by Johnson.
In a Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) press release dated the day after the original Libertarian Party ad was published, NAN Grand Chief Harvey Yesno stated, “The statements made by Libertarian candidate Tamara Johnson are outrageous and disparaging against First Nations and our Treaty rights. All citizens have the right to express their opinions, but we strongly disagree with the dissemination of information that is factually incorrect and appears to be racially motivated.”
On a Friday June 13, 2014 interview with the CBC, “It strikes me almost like …. what the Libertarians are saying is exactly what was happening in the U.S. in the sixties with black people,” he continued. “We’re better than that. We’re better than that as a city.”
Things get even more interesting in the saga of Johnson as it turns out that she was quietly given the boot earlier from the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.
The comments she believed got her expelled from the party centres on a Facebook post in June where, Johnson said, “business owners selling gas and cigarettes on Fort William First Nation have an advantage” over other such business. She later removed the post.
Interviewed again on Saturday June 14, 2014, by the CBC referencing the Idle No More movement, said, “I think I spoke out against any kind of illegal blockade … and that the laws of Ontario should be enforced.”
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