THUNDER BAY — Eleven years ago, when John Northey first ran for the Green Party, he said he wanted to make sure the provincial government isn’t wasteful, whether that meant environmentally or financially.
This time around Northey, who has declined all interview requests, is running for election in Thunder Bay-Superior North, where he’ll take on NDP incumbent Lise Vaugeois, Liberal hopeful Brian Hamilton, Conservative Rick Dumas, the New Blue Party’s Katherine Suutari, independent Steve Hanssen and the Northern Ontario Party’s Daniel Campbell.
Running in Thunder Bay-Atikokan in 2018, the then 44-year-old said he felt his degrees in statistics and economics gave him a good handle on what it takes to watch over government spending.
Northey, who also ran for the Greens in 2014, finished a distant fourth in the race, collecting just 880 of the 32,525 ballots cast, a little more than 2.7 per cent of the count.
Four years earlier, in the 2014 provincial election, he also finished fourth, with 3.37 per cent of the ballots cast.
Health care, along with education, were two of the main reasons Northey said he's running for provincial office. Like most people, he's seen loved ones in long-term care and thinks there's a better way.
"I watch what's going on and it scares me. I worry about the health care of everyone in this province and the sustainability," he said in 2014.
In 2025, the Green Party platform aims to build a fairer Ontario, one that puts people first, a place where residents of the province are able to find an affordable home, get the appropriate medical care at all stages of life and to protect the people and places everyone loves from the impacts of the climate emergency.
The party platform takes aim at the Conservatives, in power since 2018, saying life has gotten a lot more unaffordable during the past seven years, with entire generations of people giving up on the traditional home ownership dream.
People are anxious about the future and feel like the system is rigged against them, the platform reads, accusing Ford of abandoning every day people in favour of billionaires, while forgetting the task at hand – building affordable homes, attracting health-care workers, supporting people struggling with mental health and funding reliable transit.
“You deserve a chance,” the platform intro reads. “We’ll make the wealthiest pay their fair share so that working families can get a break on their income taxes. We’ll bring back fairness to the housing market by removing fees for first-time home buyers, protect renters from eviction by holding big corporate landlords accountable, and lower your energy bills by getting big oil and gas out of your wallet.”
