A familiar local name will be on the national stage later this month as Huron County resident Tony McQuail has officially secured a spot in the first debate of the federal NDP leadership race.
McQuail is one of five contestants confirmed for the November 27 debate in Montreal. Party officials say each participant met the required nomination signatures and entry fee to qualify.
McQuail credited his campaign team for his success so far.
"I'm pleasantly surprised that we managed to clear the 500-plus nomination signatures and pay $25,000 of the $100,000 leadership campaign fee," he said. "It is all due to the remarkable team of people who have come together around our campaign's focus on Representation, Regeneration, Redistribution and Redesign."
The Lucknow area organic farmer is promoting a green-progressive coalition to tackle environmental collapse and create a fairer society, which he says starts at the community level.
"People are interested in figuring out how they can naturalize their backyard so that it does provide habitat and food for insects and birds. People are interested in thinking about, well, could we do that on the roadsides? And you know, how can we figure out a transportation system in our rural areas that lets us use our existing car system but make us make better use of it by sharing rides and that sort of thing. There's a lot of ingenuity and creativity at the community level," McQuail explained. "I think if the federal government got involved in supporting that as a nation-building process and helping pilot project things, we could we can make much more rapid progress. But it involves people at their own community level who know their communities, know the context they're working with, know what they need to figure out: How do we do what we need to have a good life where we are, and do it using less energy and less resources."
McQuail's campaign emphasizes environmental sustainability, wealth redistribution, and a more representative democracy
"We've got to stop consuming and start sharing," he stressed. "And that's part of why I got involved, is I could either give up in despair of the course things seem to be headed, or we can talk about how we do things differently. And that's what I'm hoping I can bring into the campaign, in addition to over 50 years of farming and over 45 years of political activism."
McQuail has run five times federally and twice provincially for the NDP.
He served three terms as an elected trustee on the Huron County Board of Education during the 1980s, according to his biography on the NDP leadership campaign page. In the early 90’s he served as the Executive Assistant to the Hon. Elmer Buchanan, Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
The other candidates in the race are Tanille Johnston, Avi Lewis, Heather McPherson, and Rob Ashton. The NDP reported all five official candidates will take part in a predominantly French debate in Montreal on November 27.
"We are planning to do a rideshare/carpool to the Montreal debate," said McQuail. "Our next big hurdle will be the next $25,000 due on November 30th."
A second leadership debate is planned for February in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, and the party will choose its new leader in Winnipeg in late March.
