{"id":12246,"date":"2015-10-14T20:22:23","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T00:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=12246"},"modified":"2015-10-21T16:55:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-21T20:55:45","slug":"debate-snub-built-momentum-says-pc-candidate-baxter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/debate-snub-built-momentum-says-pc-candidate-baxter\/","title":{"rendered":"Debate snub built momentum, says PC candidate Baxter"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Dorian Baxter, it is never about the size of the dog in the fight. Rather, it is about \u201cthe size of the fight in the dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a philosophy that has served Mr. Baxter well as he sets himself the ambitious challenge to be Newmarket-Aurora\u2019s next Member of Parliament, representing the small Progressive Canadian Party, founded by former Federal cabinet minister Sinclair Stevens in response to the merger of the former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and the Canadian Alliance well over a decade ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my intention to run until I get in,\u201d says Mr. Baxter, founder of Newmarket\u2019s Christ The King Graceland Independent Anglican Church, a place of worship that melds Anglican teachings and the gospel of Elvis Presley. \u201cI know people say to be realistic, but each time I run I run to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI boxed in Africa and I never entered a boxing match expecting to lose. That doesn\u2019t mean I didn\u2019t lose some, but I will continue to run until I get in. I am 65 now and I have given myself until I am 100. That\u2019s 35 more years, so what\u2019s the hurry?\u201d<\/p>\n

It might take a while, but one of his main goals in running, he says, is to \u201cprotect the democratic process,\u201d something he argues was significantly underscored for him recently after not being invited to participate in the recent Newmarket-Aurora all-candidates\u2019 debate hosted by the Newmarket Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t keep him down; he organized a debate of his own at the Newmarket Legion \u2013 the home of his church \u2013 and was joined by Green Party candidate Vanessa Long in the process. Some might have seen this snub as a setback \u2013 and, indeed, Mr. Baxter did so at the time \u2013 but he now says it has been something of a boon to him and the party.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanadians cannot stand bullies,\u201d he says. \u201cMy phone has been ringing off the hook and I have never had more families call up for signs on their lawns. I am getting ready for a very exciting run for the finish. This has been the most exciting campaign I have ever been involved in. I have never had more people proactively contacting me and telling me they had never had any intention of voting for me, but now they are because of the assault on democracy by the Chamber. They did me the biggest favour they ever could have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also adding to the excitement this time around is the recognition. You can\u2019t mistake Mr. Baxter\u2019s look, but the recognition level in Newmarket-Aurora at the door has significantly increased. When he does go door to door, he brings with them a 10 point party platform. One of the most significant planks in the PC plan is to \u201cawaken the current government out of its slumber\u201d on trade.<\/p>\n

The recently announced Trans-Pacific Partnership might give Canada access to some countries in Asia, but through Canada\u2019s ties with the Commonwealth and Francophonie, we have access to 40 per cent of world trade, ties which Mr. Baxter says are not being capitalized on.<\/p>\n

It is also important to note that the Progressive Canadians \u201cAre the only party with two wings\u201d and is, essentially, \u201call four of the other parties rolled into one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the Red Tories, we are the Blue Liberals, and we\u2019re greener than the greens,\u201d he says. \u201cWe can match Green policies and go beyond. With the NDP, the big differential is we can match them program for program, but with our right ring we want to aim the money at the cause of social ills like poverty, and not the symptoms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding post-secondary education remains a key tenet of the plan. Mr. Baxter\u2019s vision includes a Canada that removes barriers for academic students attending their post-secondary institutions with their first three years of education paid for by the government through \u201cgoing after big banks and huge, profit-making real estate people\u201d that would be mandated to help pay for it. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can do it,\u201d he says. \u201cWe literally are in a position to be able to take over the faltering leadership of the United States. The United States, unfortunately, is staggering and the torch is falling out of their hands. Canada has the opportunity not only to catch that torch, but to brandish it higher than it ever was brandished and return to the peacekeeping nation we are fully intended to be and the leader we need to be in climate change and recognizing this can be one of the most prosperous industries when we deal with solar energy, when we deal with wind energy and it is just waiting for us to create more and more jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Dorian Baxter, it is never about the size of the dog in the fight. Rather, it is about \u201cthe size of the fight in the dog.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vote2015"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/2015-10-15-11.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3bw","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 06:38:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}