John Jordan To Represent Ontario PC Party in LFK

Jeff Green | Apr 06, 2022

John Jordan brings two key life experiences to his candidacy for the Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston seat in the upcoming provincial election.

In 1990, his father Leo won the election, in the old Lanark-Renfrew riding for the Progressive Conservatives, and he then served for 10 years, so John has family experience about what an MPP’s life is like.

At that time, Leo was also about the same age as his son John is now, having spent his working career at Ontario Hydro while keeping his family farm going.

John has also had a long, successful career before entering politics. He was hired as the Executive Director of the North Lanark Community Health Centre in 2000. Over a few short years, integration between 5 agencies led to the establishment of the agency that is now called Connectwell, providing a range of services to a large geographic area, in three counties.

“I went from managing a small agency with 20 employees, to heading up the leadership team with over 200 employees, all done through voluntary integration. Much of my job was working with local government municipalities, counties, and provincial ministries. We grew as an organisation by working with partners.

“That part of my old job was what I enjoyed the most, and it is part of my motivation to continue that kind of work in provincial politics,” he said

Connectwell, the new name that replaced Lanark Renfrew Health and Commnunity Services a year ago, provides community-based primary health care, health promotion programs and services, and a range of developmental and social services. It serves communities in Lanark, Renfrew, and Leeds and Grenville counties.

John Jordan retired from the Chief Executive Officer position at Connectwell last Thursday, just in time to get his campaign for MPP underway.

“I was not necessarily ready to retire for another year or two, but I’m happy, the staff is happy.”

A new CEO. Sarah Sark, is in place at Connectwell.

The selection process to find a Progressive Conservative (PC) candidate began over a year ago. The riding association was seeking a candidate to replace Randy Hillier, who was ejected from the PC caucus one year into the current term of government and was not given leave to seek the candidacy for the party again.

North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins, and Lanark Highlands Councillors were both already in the race for the nomination when John Jordan decided to throw his hat into the ring.

“I was late to the race, so to speak,” said Jordan, in a phone interview this week. “I had big decisions to make around my career first.”

He said that while his father, who died in 2015 at the age of 85, always encouraged him to run, “I always said no way. My wife and I had young kids and it wasn't in my career plan to make that kind of change, although I have thought about it a couple of times over the years.”

This time, the timing worked out for him.

Ron Higgins ended up pulling out of the running for PC candidate and threw his support to Jordan, in a process that ended last August. Since then, Jordan has continued working full time at Connectwell, but the campaign arrangements have been proceeding behind the scenes.

“We are working very hard now, still behind the scenes, but we have our volunteers and signs all ready to go,” he said. A campaign office will be opening soon as well.”

He said that his plans for the campaign have not changed because Randy Hillier is no longer in the race, seeking support from the strong block of Conservative voters in the riding.

“There are a lot of issues of concern in this election in Lanark-Frontenac Kingston, and that is what I am planning to focus on. I think the party is on track to make the kinds of improvements to health care that are needed, but the pandemic has shown what we already knew, that long term care, and home and community care for seniors, needs more resources.

“Also primary care. There are a lot of orphaned patients in the region, and when you have communities like Carleton Place, the fastest growing population centre in Canada, it only makes it more important to address primary care and other health services.”

In the latest census, the population of the Carleton Place census division grew by 16.5%, to almost 14,000 people. Only 3 years ago, a Lanark County population forecast predicted that the population of Carleton Place would grow to 20,000 within 20 years, but the rate of growth has accelerated since then.

Although fibre based Internet is well established in population centres like Carleton Place, improvements in Internet service to rural communities is another of Jordan's priorities, as are affordability issues.

“Transportation is always an issue in our region. So, when gas prices go up, we feel it. In downtown Toronto, people have options for transportation, here we don't,” he said.

John Jordan and his wife Brenda Leah live on the family farm in Montague township (near Smith Falls) where he was raised. They have three adult children and raise beef cattle. He is well known across Lanark County through his work and life experience, but is not as well known in Frontenac County, but he hopes to change that during the upcoming campaign.