One of the faces of independent media, Andrew Lawton of True North, has announced that he’s launching a campaign to represent Ontario’s Elgin-St. Thomas-London South riding in the next federal election for the Conservative Party of Canada.
Lawton made the surprise announcement on Wednesday through social media.
“’I’ve been fighting for freedom and conservative values my whole career. Now, I want to take that fight to Ottawa,” he said.
Prior to the announcement, Lawton was the managing editor of True North, and is deeply immersed in federal politics, reporting daily on current events on ‘The Andrew Lawton Show’. He’s interviewed a number of high profile figures including the CPC leader, Pierre Poilievre, as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Priorities listed on his campaign page include standing up for freedom and against censorship, stopping assisted-suicide for people with mental illness, reducing taxes and government spending, as well as defunding the CBC.
“Unapologetic conservative”
Lawton calls himself an “Unapologetic conservative.” The 37-year-old wrote a book detailing the Freedom Convoy movement in Ottawa that inspired blue-collar protests across the world, titled, The Freedom Convoy: The Inside Story of Three Weeks that Shook the World.
The riding, currently Elgin-Middlesex-London, but changing names to Elgin-St. Thomas-London South for the next election, is considered a Conservative stronghold, having been held by the party for nearly two decades.
The development comes after Conservative MP Karen Vecchio announced that she will not be seeking re-election. Vecchio has held the seat since 2015. In the 2021 federal election, she received 31,472 votes, nearly three times as many as the second-place candidate, Liberal Afeez Ajibowu.
