As part of our Ontario Votes election coverage, BradfordToday plans to profile each of the candidates in the York-Simcoe riding. Here's our look at Sean Conroy, the Ontario Libertarian Party hopeful:
The local Libertarian candidate wants be a voice for the average Joe and bring politics back to reality.
Since Ontario Progressive Conservative leader and then-premier Doug Ford called an early election on Jan. 28, candidates have been lining up to offer their visions for the riding of York-Simcoe before voters go to the polls on Feb. 27 — about 15 months ahead of schedule.
“Ultimately, I feel the riding deserves someone who genuinely listens to the constituents and businesses and works for them,” Libertarian Sean Conroy said.
Conroy, 44, is senior manager in the live-events industry, has been in the riding since 1985 and currently resides in Georgina.
He feels the major parties have “fallen short,” and are more focused on party policies than the concerns of residents, and as someone who has experience bringing together multiple groups to produce live events, Conroy is familiar with “controlling chaos,” to create something from it.
As someone who has faced many of the same struggles as everyone else, “I want to be their champion, to be their voice, to be the average Joe that’s facing these career politicians and bringing them back to reality.”
While he previously identified more as a conservative, Conroy said that began to change prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, when he stumbled upon the Libertarian party, and said he strongly aligns with their core values of personal rights and freedoms combined with smaller government and holding elected officials accountable.
“It’s all based on the individual. I believe in engaging in direct and meaningful conversations about their concerns and showing them that I actually listen,” he said.
During those conversations, Conroy said he’s heard people are tired of “being pushed around” and “told what to feel or how to think,” and that when people do speak up, they feel like they’re being ignored.
Currently, he sees the biggest issue of this election as the affordability crisis impacting everything from groceries and fuel to housing and services — “everything across the board.”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re in lower income, middle income or higher income; everybody has the same concerns,” Conroy said.
In order to help address that, he wants to work toward increasing transparency in government, with a main focus on audits of government organizations and bureaucracies to identify and remove waste.
As an example, Conroy pointed to the health-care system, in which their are multiple layers of organizations between the patient and the ministry of health, which can include the family health teams, Ontario health teams and Ontario Health.
“Despite astronomical amounts spent on health care, by the time it actually gets to front-line services, the funding is so depleted, we don’t actually see the benefit of those injections of cash,” he said.
As he understands, there are similar issues in education and almost all ministries that results in “excessive bloat,” which Conroy is hoping to remove in order to provide better services while lowering taxes.
The Libertarian party explains libertarianism supports all civil liberties and opposes all attempts by government to reshape its citizens’ lives. When it comes to economics, the political philosophy challenges the right of government to restrict trade in any way, or to force citizens to support through taxes projects they will not willingly support on the free market.
For more information about the Libertarian campaign, visit the party website.