Kingston, Ont., Mayor Bryan Paterson has joined the race to represent Kingston and the Islands for the Conservatives in the upcoming federal election.
Paterson made the announcement during a reception Thursday hosted by a group called “We Choose Bryan,” which has spent months encouraging him to run.
Paterson said the problems Kingston is currently facing transcend local solutions, so he wants to be part of the next federal government.
“We’re going to carry a message of hope and change that this community desperately needs,” Paterson said, promising to “build a big blue tent” with room for everyone regardless of race, sexual orientation and more.
Paterson is in his third term as mayor of the eastern Ontario city with a population of 132,500. An economics professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, he was first elected in 2014.
He said he’ll take an unpaid leave of absence from his mayoral and teaching jobs if he wins the Conservative nomination, and has already stepped back from the Ontario Big City Mayors and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario board.
Liberal seat since 1988
Leona Alleslev, a Toronto-area Conservative MP from 2015 to 2021 and deputy leader of the party under Andrew Scheer, is also vying for the Conservative nomination. Jarrod Stearns, the current chair of the Kingston Police Services Board, is also in the running.
Whoever wins the candidacy will be taking on Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen, himself a former Kingston city councillor and mayor. Gerretsen was elected in 2015, becoming the latest in a string of Liberals to hold the seat since 1988.
The NDP says it has nominated registered nurse Daria Juüdi-Hope.
The next federal election has to happen by Oct. 20, though the three major opposition parties have now pledged to bring down the minority Liberal government at the earliest opportunity.
Parliament has been prorogued, or suspended, until March 24.
Kingston and the Islands will soon revert to its 2023 borders, including parts of the City of Kingston that now belong to Lanark–Frontenac, plus Wolfe and Howe islands.