'Do I think I can win? Yes': Nicholls joins new party ahead of election year

A local member of provincial parliament is joining a new party.

Ousted by the Progressive Conservatives this summer, Rick Nicholls is now the Ontario Party’s first sitting member in the legislature.

“The Ford progressives have actually lost their moral, conservative compass,” says Nicholls, who wants to be part of a new movement.

“Bring back true conservative values to the people of Ontario because the people and the province have been grossly affected by the current policies this government is putting through.”

Since 2011, Nicholls has served as MPP of Chatham-Kent Leamington.

During that time, he was a member of the PC Caucus, but that all changed earlier this summer.

Nicholls was ejected from the party in August, after refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

“People think people who are refusing to get, what I call the jab, are anti Vaxers, that’s not true. That’s absolutely not true,” Nicholls tells CTV News Windsor.

“We wanna stand up for individual rights and freedoms. We don’t agree with all these lockdowns that have been occurring.”

One political analyst compares the Ontario Party to the Maverick Party and People’s Party of Canada.

“I think it’s very similar to sort of the other movements we’ve seen elsewhere,” says Lydia Miljan, political science professor at the University of Windsor.

“Just overall they’re frustrated with what they perceive as intrusion on civil liberties.”

The Ontario Party is currently putting together a list of potential candidates for next year’s provincial election, including Nicholls, who is considering a bid for re-election.

“Do I think I can win? Yes, because I’m in it to win it,” Nicholls said. “I’ve always been that way.”