When Daniel Joseph left his position with the local constituency office of the People's Party of Canada, he didn't go quietly. Instead, he posted a video accusing members of his party of expressing "hateful" views. Those claims were refuted by operations director Glen Walushka, who said Joseph was removed from his position weeks earlier for other reasons. Now Joseph is an independent candidate and he's vowing to use that role to keep his former party in check.
"I definitely think that's one of the reasons," said Joseph, about his thoughts about holding his former party to account. "I can point out where I can see the PPC playbook happening in the debates." But he's quick to point out that he has plenty of other reasons. "Homelessness and drug abuse being my core focus," said Joseph. "To me, it's a community issue, and we need to have our member of parliament step in and provide some leadership."
Joseph would like to see people given more of an opportunity to drive policy-making from the grassroots level."We can be engaging our constituents quite a bit more actively in the legislative process, he added. "We should be bringing them really, with us to Ottawa through technology, while we're there representing them."
When the former competitive boxer came in for his interview he was sporting a bandaged hand. He broke a hand while dealing with a trespasser outside the business he manages.
As for the allegations Joseph made about his colleagues at the PPC, we interviewed him about the subject in the following days and he didn’t provide specifics. As mentioned above, the claims were dismissed by Operations Manager Glen Walushka as “baseless” and “without fact.”
Voting day is October 21.
