Canada’s newest federal political party officially launched in Ottawa on Wednesday.
The Canadian Future Party is billing itself as a centrist option for voters unhappy with both the Liberals and Conservatives.
“For too long, Canadians have been asked to play a political shell game,” interim leader Dominic Cardy told a press conference in Ottawa.
“Under the shell on the left, the social programs you need. But along with it, too often you have to buy bloated government, ever-increasing spending, divorced from delivering results.
“Under the shell on the right, we’re supposed to find fiscal discipline. But along with it, too often there’s a mean-spirited approach that blames the most vulnerable for their plight, selfishness masquerading as liberty that happily misdirects government resources to the wealthy, and polices our bodies and our bedrooms.”
Interim party president Tara McPhail, a former activist with the Conservative Party, joined Cardy at Wednesday’s launch. She said the new party is a place for Canadians like her who are “politically homeless.”
Cardy, a former cabinet minister in New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative government and the former leader of the province’s New Democratic Party, said the new party is oriented neither to the left nor the right, “but forward.”
The Canada Future Party will put itself to the test right out of the gate by fielding candidates in byelections in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun and Elmwood—Transcona next month.
Mark Khoury is on the ballot in the Quebec race, while the party’s candidate for the Manitoba race will be announced soon.
Cardy laid out five policy planks on which he says the new party will be campaigning: reforming government programs, increasing Canada’s defence spending to two per cent of its gross domestic product, reforming immigration through “better gatekeepers,” making life more affordable by “dismantling protectionism” and increasing competition in the airline, telecommunications and agricultural sectors.
Dominic Cardy, a longtime provincial politician from New Brunswick, says his new party — the Canadian Future Party — will look to win votes from people who want an alternative to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.
‘They’re not awful human beings’
Cardy said he will run in a leadership race when the party holds a convention in November.
Cardy said he couldn’t state how many members the party has registered — he noted the party only got approval from Elections Canada last month, which required it to have have 250 founding members. He said party support has been growing steadily. He added the party will have a strict vetting system to fend off potential foreign interference.
“We’ve got folks around our leadership table who have backgrounds in all of the major political parties at different levels, including former MPs,” he said.
Asked whether the party has any support from current members of Parliament, Cardy said he’s had discussions with a number of them.
“I would guess that a lot of them would be looking to see how we do in the next little while, and I hope we can attract some of them,” he said. “Because there are some great MPs, from all parties.
“And wouldn’t it be nice if we could actually start saying that again? That they’re not terrible. They’re not awful human beings. That there are some fantastic people involved in politics.”