Belinda Carmen Karahalios is a Canadian politician who served as the member of Provincial Parliament for the riding of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

in the

Legislative Assembly of Ontario The Legislative Assembly of Ontario (OLA, french: Assemblée législative de l'Ontario) is the legislative chamber of the Canadian province of Ontario. Its elected members are known as Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs). Bills passed by ...

from 2018 to 2022. Karahalios was originally elected in the 2018 provincial election as a member of the

Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (french: Parti progressiste-conservateur de l'Ontario), often shortened to the Ontario PC Party or simply the PCs, colloquially known as the Tories, is a centre-right political party in Ontario, Canada ...

(PC). She was ejected from the party caucus in July 2020 for voting against Bill 195, which would allow the provincial government to extend

emergency powers A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...

for up to two years without consulting the legislature. She finished her term as a member of the

New Blue Party of Ontario The New Blue Party of Ontario ( abbr. New Blue; french: Nouveau Parti Bleu de l'Ontario) is a minor socially conservative political party in the Canadian province of Ontario. Founded in 2020, the party is led by Jim Karahalios, the husband of Be ...

, which is led by her husband,

Jim Karahalios Jim Karahalios is a Canadian politician who has never been elected to public office, and lawyer who ran as the New Blue candidate for Kitchener—Conestoga in the 2022 Ontario general election. He is the co-founder and leader of the New Blue Par ...

. Karahalios was unseated by the Progressive Conservative candidate in the 2022 Ontario general election.

Political career

Karahalios won in the riding of Cambridge in the Ontario general election in 2018."PC Belinda Karahalios wins in Cambridge riding"

CBC Kitchener-Waterloo CBLA-FM-2 is the CBC Radio One station licensed to Paris, Ontario, Canada but primarily serving the nearby Waterloo Region. It broadcasts on the FM band at 89.1 MHz. Previously licensed as a rebroadcaster of CBLA-FM in Toronto, it began origina ...

, June 7, 2018. On June 29, 2018, she was appointed as the parliamentary assistant to

Lisa MacLeod Lisa Anne MacLeod (born 1974) is a Canadian politician who has represented Nepean in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Elected in 2018, MacLeod is a member of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party. She previously served as the Ontario m ...

, the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services. Following a cabinet shuffle on June 20, 2019, she was appointed as the parliamentary assistant to Sylvia Jones, the Solicitor General. On November 26, 2019, Karahalios tabled Bill 150, the ''Ensuring Transparency and Integrity in Political Party Elections Act, 2019''. This legislation would make it an offence for anyone in Ontario to commit voter fraud in an internal party election. The grounds for introducing the bill was internal party corruption, alleged by Jim Karahalios, Doug Ford, Vikram Singh, and others in the 2018 Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leadership election and in the same party's November 2018 convention. The bill passed second reading unanimously, despite initial indications that the Ontario PC caucus would vote against it, and it is now awaiting its third reading. Karahalios was ejected from the Progressive Conservative caucus by party leader and premier

Doug Ford Douglas Robert Ford Jr. (born November 20, 1964) is a Canadian politician and businessman who has served as the 26th and current premier of Ontario since June 2018 and leader of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party since March 2018. He ...

after voting against Bill 195, the ''Reopening Ontario Act'', which would expand the government's emergency authority during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Karahalios voted against the legislation, calling it an "unnecessary overreach on our parliamentary democracy." Karahalios co-founded the

alongside her husband,

. In December 2021, Karahalios was ejected from the Legislative Assembly for failing to present a

proof of vaccination A vaccine passport or proof of vaccination is an immunity passport employed as a credential in countries and jurisdictions as part of efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic via vaccination. A vaccine passport is typically issued by a governm ...

. Karahalios presented a negative COVID-19 antigen test, but it was rejected because it had occurred within 90 days of her last positive test. Karahalios was originally a supporter of Bill 184, which amended the '' Residential Tenancies Act'' to remove rent control from any rental units first occupied after November 15, 2018. In a 2020 Committee on Social Policy hearing, during which community organizers and certain MPPs who opposed the bill spoke about the bill's negative impact on the social stability of communities in Toronto (including such issues as bad faith evictions leading to homelessness), Karahalios expressed concern about the "vilification" of landlords, and noted that "We hear stories from both tenants and landlords, and yes, I’ve come across bad tenants and bad landlords. Not all landlords are bad and not all tenants are bad." After other members of the Committee and the community who were present at the meeting described the impact of rent decontrol leading to profit-motivated evictions by the large corporations which provide the majority of rental housing in Ontario, Karahalios reiterated her concern about "small andlordswho ... wound up with some tenants they’re not having a great experience with." Karahalios was unseated by the Progressive Conservative candidate in the 2022 Ontario general election. She ran for

Cambridge City Council Cambridge City Council is a district council in the county of Cambridgeshire, which governs the City of Cambridge. History Cambridge was granted a Royal Charter by King John in 1207, which permitted the appointment of a mayor. The first recorde ...

in the 2022 municipal elections, but lost.

Personal life

Belinda Karahalios is married to

, a corporate lawyer and founder of activist groups "Axe The Carbon Tax" and "Take Back Our PC Party", who was disqualified from running in the 2020 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election. She is of mixed

Trinidadian Trinidadians and Tobagonians, colloquially known as Trinis or Trinbagonians, are the people who are identified with the country of Trinidad and Tobago. The country is home to people of many different national, ethnic and religious origins. As a ...

and

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

descent.

Election results

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karahalios, Belinda 1982 births Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario MPPs Women MPPs in Ontario Living people People from Cambridge, Ontario Politicians from Mississauga Canadian people of Trinidad and Tobago descent Canadian people of Portuguese descent Black Canadian politicians 21st-century Canadian women politicians Independent MPPs in Ontario Politicians affected by a party expulsion process New Blue Party of Ontario MPPs