André Fortin did a lot of soul searching and checking with family before signing up to represent the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) as the Yukon candidate in the federal elections that have yet to be called.
Born and raised in Quebec, as noted in a press release, Fortin has four grown children and has been in the Yukon for more than 40 years. He met with the News for an interview at the newsroom on March 19, after issuing the press release to make the announcement.
Fortin believes Yukoners have lost trust in federal institutions due to a lack of transparency and “corruptions and scandals” like SNC-Lavalin and the Arrive Can app.
“It seems that we are governed through social media, not by well-thinking individuals that rely on facts,” he said.
“It just appears that it's emotions.”
He has experience in public service, infrastructure development and energy governance in the North, as noted in the release. That includes more than a decade having served on the Yukon Utilities Board until 2024. He studied electrical engineering technology at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, graduating in 1974.
A News article from March 30, 2001, profiled the company Fortin helped found. The company, which started a decade prior as a "little one-man operation out of a Datsun four-door sedan" upgraded heat control systems for the Canadian Armed Forces in Alert, N.W.T., as noted in the piece.
The release indicates he joined the PPC because he prioritizes “accountability and informed policy above rhetoric and bureaucratic red tape.”
Fortin admits he isn’t quite ready for an election but no one else came forward so he did. He doesn’t have an official agent or campaign manager yet.
“I think the voters are tired of platitudes, of words that are meaningless, promises that are, will never come through,” he said.
He said he’s best fit to be the Yukon MP because he “can be uncensored.”
As for the party he represents: “It's not a perfect party.”
But, from Fortin's perspective, Maxime Bernier’s PPC is better than the “axe the tax” Conservatives, which he says find themselves on shaky footing since newly sworn-in Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney ended the consumer carbon price.
The Yukon is regarded as a swing riding. It went from blue to red in 2015.
“I think that there's a great bunch of Liberal voters that don't want to vote Liberal anymore because they're disgusted with what the government has done with the territory, and they want to park their vote somewhere. They're not prepared to vote Conservative,” Fortin said.
He said some Conservatives will remember what he called the “Jonas Smith affair.”
The PPC didn’t have a Yukon candidate in the 2021 federal elections. With a close race, now-Liberal MP Brendan Hanley took the Yukon seat with 6,471 votes. Conservative Barbara Dunlop came in next with 5,096 votes. Lisa Vollans-Leduc of the NDP got 4,354 votes. Smith, who ran as an Independent after getting booted as the Conservative candidate for his vaccine stance, followed up with 2,639 votes. Lenore Morris of the Green Party received 846 votes, and 142 ballots were rejected.
While Fortin doesn’t have political priorities — he wants to listen to Yukoners and potential voters — guns, energy, health care, housing and “the mandates” are key issues he sees.
“It's not the COVID. It's not a virus that enabled, enacted these policies. It's government,” he said. He cited psychological damage, addictions, and broken friendships and businesses as a result of policies intended to prevent the spread of the virus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fortin said the U.S. president's tariffs are a distraction.
“The best way to deal with a bully first is to ignore them. Generally, they go pick on somebody else. And right now, we're in a bit of a pickle, because we antagonized the beast,” he said. He blamed the “inexperienced” people in Ottawa. He sees other options like doubling the price of American bourbon on Canadian shelves to get back.
To Fortin, crime is a “real problem” and the idea of defunding the RCMP is “totally insane."
As for the future of CBC, where he used to work in Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Inuvik, Fortin encourages people to do their homework.
“I don't want people to take my opinion,” he said.
“I want the people to form their own opinion.”
In part, Fortin gave props to the local CBC.
“They're great crew. They've done a good job,” he said.
While Fortin pointed out what he thinks the public broadcaster gets wrong — “bias by omission” and being a “mouthpiece” for whichever party takes power — with some people and politicians talking about defunding the CBC, he suggested it would be “inhumane” to fire thousands of people overnight.
For example, he said he didn’t find any stories in the media after Yukon Party MLA Brad Cathers questioned territorial Health and Social Services Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee in the legislature on March 14, 2024, about the Yukon’s rate of adverse effects following COVID-19 immunization.
A letter from the health department provides two reasons that they believe the Yukon had a “considerably higher” rate than the Canadian rate. The department said the Yukon had a very sensitive case definition that “cast a wide net and captured many mild” adverse events, plus reporting of adverse events may have been “more accessible and more complete” in the smaller jurisdiction.
An auditor general’s report notes the total of 550 adverse events represents 0.5 per cent of the 103,854 shots in arm administered in the Yukon, with 0.03 per cent of all doses administered categorized as “serious events,” from Jan. 1, 2021, to Oct. 31, 2022.
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com
