Federal Tories Add Ontario Minister Parm Gill to Line-Up of New Candidates

Then-MP Parm Gill responds to a question in the House of Commons in 2014 in Ottawa. Mr. Gill is now seeking re-election in the Milton riding. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Ontario’s Minister of Red Tape Reduction, Parm Gill, has left his post to run for the federal Conservatives in the riding of Milton.

Mr. Gill made the announcement in a Jan. 25 statement, saying many members of the community have urged him to join the federal Conservatives in recent months.

“I am motivated to continue to fight for the constituents of Milton by joining Pierre Poilievre’s common sense Conservative team in their efforts to defeat Justin Trudeau’s Liberal-NDP costly coalition,” he said.

Mr. Gill did not provide an effective date for his resignation, only saying he had informed Premier Doug Ford that he was leaving cabinet and his MPP seat. The Epoch Times contacted Mr. Ford’s office for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Before Mr. Gill’s current role in Mr. Ford’s Progressive-Conservative government, he served as minister of citizenship and multiculturalism from 2021 to 2022.

Mr. Gill is a two-term Member of the Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario who previously served as Brampton-area MP for the federal Conservatives under Stephen Harper from 2011 to 2015. He occupied two different parliamentary roles in the last days of the Tory government before Justin Trudeau came to power in the fall of 2015.

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The current MP for the Milton federal riding is Liberal Adam van Koeverdeen, who was first elected in 2019.

The Conservative Party changed its nomination rules to shorten the application window for other potential candidates for Milton, the Globe and Mail reported on Jan. 25. The Epoch Times reached out to the party to confirm but didn’t immediately hear back.

Mr. Gill is among a slate of new high-profile candidates running in the next election or seeking nomination.

Former MPP and federal Tory leadership contender Roman Baber, who Doug Ford expelled from the party caucus for his criticism of COVID-19 restrictions, is also running for the Tories in the Toronto riding of York Centre. The riding is currently being represented by Liberal MP and Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Ya’ara Saks.

Other future Tory candidates include media personalities Jamil Jivani, running in the Ontario riding of Durham, and Aaron Gunn, who seeks the House of Commons seat for B.C.’s North Island-Powell River riding. Former National Post columnist Sabrina Maddeaux is also seeking nomination in Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill in Ontario.

B.C. United Party MLA Ellis Ross announced a run as well under the Tory banner for the riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a swipe at some of the new candidates running for the Tories in his Jan. 25 Liberal caucus address. He said they show Mr. Poilievre is “focused on bringing his party further to the right.”

Mr. Trudeau says the new candidates are either “insiders or ideologues, or both.”

“Poilievre’s candidate in Durham is a twofer. He’s both an ideologue and an insider,” said the prime minister in reference to Mr. Jivani, whom he accused of not living in the community.

Mr. Jivani responded in an online video, which he says was filmed from an apartment he rents in Oshawa, in the Durham region, where he has “lived for years.”

In responding to the “twofer” accusation, Mr. Jivani said he’s “not exactly sure what that means in reference to a human being.”

“I’m also not sure how the prime minister has time to be name-calling when he should be trying to save his failed administration,” he added.