Random Access

It’s always refreshing when you ask a political candidate where he grew up and the answer is: “I don't think that’s happened yet.”
But then, Ronnie Amyotte, or Uncle Ronnie as he called himself in the first press release he issued, isn’t your ordinary federal would-be MP.
He’s a man of many hats, who worked in a mine at Elliot Lake when he was 16, has just come back from a three-and-a-half-month business trip to China, owns a local real estate business with his wife of 35 years, was one of the founders of the Block Parent program, is a winner of an award from the International Poetry Society for something he posted on one of the on-line condolence sites after 9/11, formerly ran one of the largest resource recovery plants in Ontario and is an internationally competitive ballroom and Latin dancer. Whew.
Uncle Ronnie is the kind of guy who throws, “I travelled by myself on a raft on the Yangtze River, just for fun” into the conversation and then carries on as if he just said, “Isn’t it a nice day?”
Amyotte’s real passion, it turns out, is inventing and railing at the wrongs of our political system.
His first invention, as a teen, was a rocket-shaped popsicle container.
He travels frequently to promote the many products he sells including the P-Rite toilet seat lifter. That’s a pedal on the floor attached to the seat so you can open and close the lid hygienically. If only we could attach it to political lips, eh?
All of the foregoing may give you the impression that Amyotte isn’t a serious candidate in Mississauga South, where he’s lived for more than two decades.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
“I’m running for a democratic state, which we don’t have today,” he says. “I want to create a voice for the people, so commoners can actually be heard in the House of Commons.”
Amyotte calls it depressing to tell the truth about the state of the nation: “We have an abundance of law, and little order; a lot of crime and little punishment. A convicted child-killer walks our streets. Our children are shot in cross-fire by gangs. If we do not pay for what we do, we continue to do it. It starts at the top.”
So, what are the chances of the guy in the black cowboy hat getting elected? Well, they’re zero, but that's almost beside the point for Amyotte.
He’s running because parties, not the public, run our system. He sees wrong and he wants to make it right.
“I’m telling people, you can fix this,” he said. “The window of opportunity is open. Run as an independent. Encourage others to. Work for them. Vote for them. Be not afraid.”
In the era of strategic voting, it’s nice to be reminded that some people still care so passionately about democracy and want to exercise it directly.
Uncle Ronnie reminds us, once again, that there is no such thing as a wasted vote.