Liberals fail to field full slate of candidates, but brand-new New Blue Party does

The ballots are off to the printers for the June 2 provincial election. And for the first time in many years, the Liberals failed to field a full slate of candidates.

There will not be a Liberal on the ballot in Timmins or in Parry Sound-Muskoka, where a candidate was dropped this week after expressing controversial views about homosexuality.

The Liberals also had trouble finding a candidate in Sault Ste. Marie, a riding the party held from 2003 to 2016, and ended up with a "parachute candidate" from Toronto.

Meanwhile, the recently-formed New Blue Party managed to get a candidate in all 124 ridings across Ontario, like the far more established Progressive Conservatives, New Democrats and Green Party.

Another new right-of-centre party called the Ontario Party is running candidates in six of the nine ridings of the northeast. 

The Confederation of Regions Party, Libertarians and the Populist Party are also represented in the region in this election.

After fielding a record 10 candidates in 2018, the Northern Ontario Party only has two in this election, in Thunder Bay-Superior North and Thunder Bay-Atikokan. 

There will be long ballots to fill out for voters in Timiskaming-Cochrane, Nipissing and Sudbury with eight candidates to choose from. 

And once again the Sudbury ballot will have the name of religious extremist David Popescu, who has run in almost every federal, provincial and municipal election for more than 20 years.