Jane Philpott announces plan to run as independent in federal election

Yorkregion.com
May 28, 2019
Simon Martin

Markham-Stouffville MP Jane Philpott will run as an independent candidate in this fall's federal election.

Philpott was elected in 2015 as a member of the Liberal Party and served in multiple cabinet posts before resigning as president of the treasury board earlier this year. She was later forced to leave caucus.

"I didn't lose my voice; I found my voice ,and the only people who are the boss of me right now is you," Philpott said of her time as an independent MP.

In declaring herself an independent candidate for re-election in Markham-Stouffville, Philpott, a former Liberal cabinet minister, said she is willing to work with everyone -- up to and including Justin Trudeau’s Liberals -- in a bid to get big things done.

"I will work with Liberals -- absolutely. I feel like they are family. But I will work with others as well," Philpott told a crowd some 200 supporters at a rural farm market, where she laid out plans to champion independence in Ottawa and behalf of an electorate she said is "tired of hyperpartisan politics".

Clad in a white suit to emphasize her willingness to align with other parties on specific issues, Philpott said, "White goes with everything. It goes with blue, red, orange, green -- bring it all on, we’re going to work together".

Philpott she spoke at length with Green Party officials about the possibility of changing colours, but for Philpott, though she described Green leader Elizabeth May as an "ally", said she didn’t see Green as a perfect fit.