Paul Vickers. (image from BGOS PC Riding Association)
Former Meaford councillor Paul Vickers will be the Progressive Conservative candidate in the next Ontario election.
Vickers won the party’s candidacy at a nomination meeting at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre in Owen Sound Saturday. The nomination meeting was organized after current Progressive Conservative Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Rick Byers announced last year he would not be running in the next provincial election.
The PC Party of Ontario did not permit Bayshore Broadcasting News and other media into the room where the nomination voting results were announced, and would not allow Vickers to be interviewed following the meeting. But he answered a phone call later Saturday evening.
“I’m really excited. It’s something I have been working at with my team since October,” Vickers says. “I think it’s important to have people that are willing to speak up for the riding. It’s not always easy or comfortable speaking up on behalf of what’s important for the people in our riding. But I think it’s important our voice is heard in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound.”
Vickers is a dairy farmer who served on Meaford council between 2018-22. He then made an unsuccessful bid to become Meaford’s mayor in the 2022 Ontario municipal elections.
He is currently on the board of directors of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. And in the past he served on the board of Gay Lea Foods Cooperative for 15 years.
“Agriculture is very important to me,” Vickers says. “I’ve lived in the agriculture industry my whole entire life. And Bruce and Grey counties are very big into agriculture. And I think it needs a voice to tell the story of agriculture to the rest of Ontario.”
Vickers was among four candidates competing for the Progressive Conservative nomination for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound. He defeated Owen Sound councillor Brock Hamley, former West Grey Mayor Christine Robinson and former West Grey councillor Stephen Townsend in the vote.
Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Progressive Conservative Riding Association Vice-President of Communications and Nomination Committee member Karen McInnis says 829 party members had registered to vote at the nomination meeting.
The next election in Ontario doesn’t have to be held until June 4, 2026. But political parties have been nominating candidates amid persistent speculation from Queen’s Park that Premier Doug Ford could call an election sometime this year.