My name is Joe Ward, and on October 19th, I was defeated in the CBRM mayoral election by Cecil Clarke. With a tidy margin of 3,760 votes, he became our next mayor and I lagged behind in second place.

3 days later, Fred Tilley, a Liberal MLA for Northside-Westmount defected to join Tim Houston as an NSPC team member. I fully recognize that taking issue with Tilley may draw suggestions of sour grapes. So, let me start by saying the following. I entered the political arena knowing fully well that I had to be prepared to enter their universe—including all of the political tactics, ethical or otherwise. The objective was to run a strategy that would allow me to win regardless of what obstacles stood in my way, and I simply fell short. There are a whole variety of reasons to explain my loss—some external and some just gaps in my own campaign, or just mistakes I made a long the way.

As a long-time writer and podcaster of topics related to the CBRM, I assure you I would have been addressing this issue, even if I had never run for mayor or council in 2024.

I'm a critic of the political party system, because of its bias, and because MLAs (or MPs) are subject to their party before their constituents. I fundamentally disapprove of that inherent flaw of the system. I actually believe that a party member defecting to another party is one of the rare occurrences in which they genuinely demonstrate the ability to decide on something for themselves. Of course, I can also understand that their party supporters may feel deceived or let down.

I feel that what Fred Tilley did recently was unethical. However, it is not because he defected to join Tim Houston. The part I take issue with is that as an elected Liberal MLA he made an endorsement of my opponent Cecil Clarke, earlier in his campaign. He did so while still under the Liberal banner. But, just three days after the municipal election was over, he joined Houston to announce that he had moved over to the NSPCs.

Are we to believe that Tilley did not know what he intended at the time of endorsing Cecil Clarke? And that the timing of his defection three days after the election was just coincidental?

While there is nothing illegal about what Tilley did (as far as I am aware), given the circumstances of his endorsement, but delay in announcing his defection until after the election, I feel that it represented manipulation of the voting public. Would his Liberal supporters have considered his endorsement of Clarke with as much contemplation if they already knew the man they voted for had intentions towards abandoning his party and joining the Houston government?

Let's see how quickly he is rewarded with a cabinet position in the next shuffle.

Through my campaign, I talked about having no political baggage. I also warned of the influence of political parties with multiple instances of former MLAs campaigning for (or even driving around) some of the mayoral or council candidates.

And then we have this tactic from Fred. When I talked so much about transparency and accountability and authenticity, these are things I truly value. Did Fred Tilley demonstrate them to his constituents and to those who voted to declare him as their Liberal MLA?

Or did he just keep it a secret and participate in electioneering during our municipal campaign on the down low? It may be hard to answer that question definitively, but you know what I think.

And my recommendation is that voters should remember what Tilley did when the provincial election is called—which is rumoured to be very soon. We'll just need someone to run that can defeat him. I wonder who that might be.

—Joe