Ontario Premier Doug Ford has kicked Cambridge MPP Belinda Karahalios out of the Conservative caucus for voting against her party on Bill 195, a bill which prevents MPPs from being able to hold the government to account for its use of emergency powers. In a democratic country, politicians are supposed to represent their constituents. By punishing Belinda Karahalios for voting according to her conscience, Doug Ford is disrespecting political rights that are essential to a democracy. We must stop political leaders from trying to violate a politician’s duty to their constituents, regardless of the party this occurs in. So please sign this petition demanding that Doug Ford reinstates Belinda Karahalios into the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario immediately.

Politics can be a dirty sport, but what Ontario Premier Doug Ford did to Belinda Karahalios was so blatantly disrespectful to our democratic rights.

On July 22, 2020, Doug Ford kicked Cambridge MPP Belinda Karahalios out of the Progressive Conservative caucus. This was not due to a scandal or some sort of offensive statement. Doug Ford kicked out Belinda Karahalios because she felt that Bill 195 went against her conscience, and so she was the only Conservative who voted against it. 

She had good reason to be against it as well. Bill 195 ends the state of emergency in Ontario, but lets Doug Ford and his government keep the emergency powers from it, such as the closing of businesses, managing workforces, and prohibiting public gatherings. Doug Ford and one of his Cabinet Ministers can extend these orders one month at a time up until 2022 without needing a vote from the legislature.

This means that if the government started using these powers in a way that was unjustifiably authoritarian in the next two years, our elected officials would have no way of stopping them.

To kick out a member of your party from having concerns about such a problematic bill is extremely disrespectful to the people who voted for Karahalios to represent them. Please SIGN our petition to make Doug Ford bring Belinda Karahalios back into the Ontario PC Party.

Social conservatives should be on the front lines in calling out Doug Ford for this. Bill 195 was a bill that even many within the mainstream media had issues with. Various organizations with differing political leanings such as the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Ontario Federation of Labour, and the Ontario Nurses’ Association called out Bill 195 as an anti-democratic power-grab.

If a politician cannot disagree with their party leader on this, then how can assure that pro-life politicians can disagree with pro-abortion party leaders? How can we assure that pro-religious freedom politicians can disagree with secular politically correct party leaders?

We need to stand up for political freedom, no matter what party we see it being suppressed in. Please join our campaign to make Doug Ford respect political freedom by bringing Belinda karahalios back into his party.

This is what it ultimately comes down to: do politicians represent their constituents or do they merely represent the agenda of their party? It’s been taken for granted in our country that though our politicians typically align with a political agenda, their jobs ultimately are to represent us. 

We’ve seen on the left that this is often not the case. In most federal parties, for instance, you can’t be pro-life. If we let politicians like Doug Ford get away with punishing politicians for doing their job at representing their constituents and their basic political beliefs, we may soon not have parties where politicians can vote according to their conscience.

This is not merely an issue Conservative party members need to worry about, or even an issue Ontarians need to worry about. This is ultimately an attack on democratic freedoms in Canada.

So please SIGN our petition today. We need Doug Ford to realize he made a mistake. We need him to reinstate Belinda Karahalios back into the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, and to never punish politicians for sticking to their consciences.

Thanks for all you do,

James Schadenberg and the entire CitizenGO Team

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