Brady celebrates win in Haldimand-Norfolk

Newly re-elected MPP Bobbi Ann Brady, right, poses for a selfie with supporter Adam Hagen of Norfolk on election night at Brady’s campaign headquarters in Simcoe.

J.P. Antonacci

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The candidate who received the most votes in the 2025 provincial election was not a party leader or a high-profile cabinet minister.

That distinction went to Bobbi Ann Brady, Ontario’s only Independent MPP and the talk of Haldimand-Norfolk.

Most political observers and polling websites predicted a tight race in the rural riding on the shores of Lake Erie.

Instead, it was a rout.

Brady took home 33,669 votes, or 63.65 per cent of all ballots cast in Haldimand-Norfolk - the fourth-highest vote share of Ontario’s 124 ridings.

She soundly defeated her five challengers, more than doubling her vote total from her first win in 2022 and leaving Progressive Conservative runner-up Amy Martin some 20,700 votes behind.

That was the second-largest margin of victory in the province.

The first woman elected as an Independent in Ontario’s history, Brady was one of only seven candidates in the province to clear the 30,000-vote threshold.

She credited her “monumental victory” to the “courage” of residents willing to vote outside the party system.

“Here we are, ordinary people who have all done the absolute extraordinary.  And not only have you done it once, but you’ve now done it twice,” Brady told cheering supporters on election night.

A successful Independent candidate is “really rare” in Ontario, said Shanaya Vanhooren, a PhD candidate who studies provincial politics at Western University and lives in Norfolk.

“And usually when you have someone running as an Independent, it’s because they’ve been pushed out of their party,” Vanhooren said.

Brady’s repeat win was only the third for an Independent candidate in Ontario since 1930. And the last time an Independent was elected without having previously run under a party banner was in 1905.

“That should be recognized. It says something,” said Dan Nagy, whose former gun store in Simcoe was home to Brady’s campaign office and her victory party.

“It tells people in Toronto you don’t have to follow the status quo,” Nagy said.

Brady, a self-described fiscal conservative, was not unknown to voters prior to first running for office. She spent 23 years as executive assistant and campaign manager for Haldimand-Norfolk’s former Conservative MPP, Toby Barrett, and she was also president of the local riding association.

Barrett tabbed Brady as his successor, but after an acrimonious nomination process prompted Brady to run as an independent, she edged out the party’s hand-picked candidate — then-Haldimand mayor Ken Hewitt - by 2,000 votes.

This year, some local Conservatives complained the riding association only sent the call for nominations out to 100 party members and held interviews when two of the four applicants - including former Norfolk County mayor Kristal Chopp -  were out of the country.

The opaque nomination process prompted one member of the riding association’s executive committee to quit in protest and endorse Brady.  Chopp also became a vocal backer of Brady’s campaign.

Parties that meddle in the nomination process “so their preferred candidate can win” run the risk of angering their erstwhile supporters, Vanhooren said.

“It seems in this case, that’s exactly what happened,” she said, explaining voters were “galvanized (by) the perception that local democracy is being thwarted.”

“That seems to be an underlying theme in the riding - ‘We’re not going to be told  who to vote for, or who our candidate is,’” Vanhooren said.

Brady garnered support from  across the political spectrum and in every corner of the far-flung  riding.

“It was a real blowout, and I don’t think anyone expected it to be,” Vanhooren said.

Thanks to the riding’s highly motivated citizenry, voter turnout hit 54.77 per cent, making it the third-highest tally in Ontario and well ahead of the provincial mark of 45.5 per cent.

Historically, Haldimand-Norfolk sees voter turnout “within a couple percentage points” of the provincial rate, Vanhooren said.

“But then in this election, we see this 10 percentage point gap, which is crazy,” she said of local participation in a rare winter election that elsewhere in Ontario had “so few people paying attention.”

Fighting the party machine

Incumbents typically have a target on their back, but Brady managed to run as a plucky underdog in what she styled as a “David and Goliath” fight against the PC party machine, which launched a full-court press to wrest back the riding.

A plethora of Conservative MPPs visited Haldimand-Norfolk for funding announcements and photo ops with Martin before the election was called, and several high-profile ministers went door-knocking with the mayor.

An attack ad from the Martin campaign questioning Brady’s voting records and conservative bona fides fell flat.

“Even though she’s the incumbent, Brady is able to position herself as an underdog because she’s an independent who’s not being tied to a party,” Vanhooren said.

“She also has this image of being disliked by Doug Ford, and she capitalizes on that.”

The premier taunted Brady during question period last April, telling the rookie MPP she would be out of a job after the next election.

Instead, Brady was elected with a stronger mandate than Ford, who received 59.3 per cent of the vote in his riding of Etobicoke North, which has roughly the same population as Haldimand-Norfolk. 

Some disgruntled local Conservatives defected to Team Brady, but many left-leaning residents also checked the box beside her name.

The NDP lost over 4,000 votes this year in Haldimand-Norfolk when compared to 2022, with the Green Party coming up roughly 1,000 votes short of its previous tally.

Some of those voters were enthused by Brady’s advocacy for the riding at Queen’s Park, while others voted strategically to block the PC appointee.

Janet Hough of Caledonia told The Spectator she voted for Brady “to block Ford.”

“Bobbi Ann wouldn’t have been my first choice, after 24 years with Barrett,” said Hough, who would have normally voted NDP “on principle,” but said Ford’s assault on the health-care system motivated her to cast her lot with the Independent.

While Hough doubts Brady can sway provincial decision-making, she enjoys that the rookie MPP “seems to have gotten up Ford’s nose” in the legislature.

The case for Independents

There is a certain freedom in running as an Independent, Vanhooren said.  While party-affiliated candidates have more resources and campaign staff, they are also ordered to stick to party messaging.

“Independents don’t have to vote with a party,” Vanhooren said. “They can focus more on the local issues and raise these issues when they have the opportunity to speak in question period.”

That is good for democracy, says Alex Marland, a political-science professor at Acadia University who studies the role of independents in the Canadian political system.

During a campaign event with Brady in Jarvis called “Democracy in Peril: The Case for Independents,” Marland said the vast majority of candidates run out of a genuine desire to help their communities, but the party system “really constrains their ability to represent Canadians.”

Party staffers keep a close watch on what politicians say and post to social media, making candidates “afraid to do anything,” Marland said.

Spots on the ballot — and in cabinet — go to politicians “who didn’t cause trouble and are not going to rebel,” he added.

Brady agreed that under the party system, candidates have to “check their personality at the door” in service of being a “party messenger.”

“The most beautiful opportunity that the people of Haldimand-Norfolk gave me in 2022 was the ability to go to Queen’s Park and still be Bobbi Ann Brady,” she said at the Jarvis event.

“As a result, you get the most raw, honest reputation that any community in Ontario has.”

Brady said her focus as a political staffer and now as MPP is “doing right” by her constituents, not regurgitating talking points or making “safe” choices with an eye to the next election.

“You have to have compassion, you have to have empathy, you have to listen to people,” Brady said.

Marland said the party system helps keep ideas and politicians organized, but legislatures also benefit from having independent members who “bring fresh perspectives” and can cross party lines.

“Every legislature needs a Bobbi Ann Brady,” he said.

During the campaign, Martin argued the riding would have a stronger voice, and get more funding, by having an MPP in government.

Brady countered that not only has funding not declined during her time in office, but the government is paying more attention to the riding to woo voters.

She touted her ability to “ask the very tough questions” of government while working with politicians from every party, repeating her mantra that “there is no monopoly on a good idea.”

Ontario’s lone Independent MPP proved her win three years ago was no fluke of circumstance. She struck a hopeful tone on election night, telling her supporters her resounding win represented “the triumph of hope, unity, and the collective power of our great communities.”

“Honesty and integrity always matter,” Brady concluded.

J.P. Antonacci is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter based at the Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.