Jama announced that she will officially be running as an independent. Pictured: MPP Sara Jama with NDP Leader Marit Stiles in 2023. Photo Credit: Marit Stiles/X.
With Premier Doug Ford calling a snap provincial election for Thursday, Feb. 27, controversial Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama made one last attempt to run as an Ontario NDP candidate but was rejected.
Instead, Jama announced that she will officially be running as an independent in the Hamilton Centre riding, which consists of the lower city and runs east-west from Kenilworth Avenue South to Highway 403.
There was talk locally that Jama was set to be accepted back into the party when she was granted the ability by the Ontario NDP to submit a nomination package with an application to run for them.
However, Jama announced on Monday, Jan. 27 that she was told by the Ontario NDP that her application was “rejected” due to the fact that she was previously kicked out of caucus.
Explaining the decision, Ontario NDP provincial director Kevin Beaulieu said in a statement, “Our party has a vetting and appeal process, approved by our Provincial Council, and that process applies to any Ontarian who seeks to run for us.”
Jama was elected in March 2023 after securing the Ontario NDP nomination despite her past comments in support of “abolishing” and “dismantling” the police and her participation in chants supporting Palestinian intifada (i.e. an act of violent uprising by Palestinian people against Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip).
After being elected, that same behaviour continued, with Jama calling a convicted terrorist “a martyr of freedom,” attending an “abolish the police” rally, making comments on social media on Oct. 10 which appeared to celebrate the October 7th Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and making further anti-Israel comments in the Ontario Legislature.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles then kicked Jama out of the party, saying that Jama had “undertaken a number of unilateral actions that have undermined our collective work and broken the trust of her colleagues.”
Those actions include hiring controversial lawyer Stephen Ellis and threatening to sue Ford for libel, pinning her controversial Oct. 10 social media statement to the top of her account profile, and delivering an unapproved speech on Palestine in the legislature in which she doubled down on her social media comments.
Stiles also said at the time that some of Jama’s actions even “contributed to unsafe work environments for staff.”
Indeed, the Toronto Star has reported that Jama’s lawyer caused security issues at the provincial legislature by trying to “personally serve Ford with a cease-and-desist letter.”
Since the decision to prevent Jama from running for the NDP was released, executive members of the Ontario NDP Hamilton Centre riding association have come out against Stiles and have called for an open nomination process with Jama included.
The Ontario NDP have approved two candidates, Aisha Jahangir and Dr. Robin Lennox, to contest the nomination in Hamilton Centre.
It is unclear when Ontario NDP members in the riding will vote for their candidate, although Stiles could appoint one of them since Ontario is now in the midst of an election period and the party is crunched for time.
Jahangir appears to live in Guelph but reportedly works as a mental health nurse at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre.
Meanwhile, Dr. Robin Lennox is a family physician who serves on the City of Hamilton’s Public Health Subcommittee and is the Co-Head of St. Joseph’s Healthcare Substance Use Service.
She appears to have similar beliefs as Jama, regularly retweeting left-wing Councillor Cameron Kroetsch (Ward 2 – Downtown Hamilton) and criticism of Israel’s military actions against Hamas.
Meanwhile, Jama has been campaigning for months and appears to have strong support in Hamilton Centre.
She has the support of controversial CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn, the Hamilton and District Labour Council, local Councillors Kroetsch and Nrinder Nann (Ward 3 – East Hamilton), multiple public school board trustees, and multiple small businesses in the area.
Additionally, the Independent riding association which she formed raised over $34,000 in one month alone at the end of 2023.
It is usually difficult to get elected without being affiliated with any political party, but the task is not impossible.
Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Bobbi Ann Brady was elected in 2022 as an independent and Jama will look to do the same.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
