Independent candidates in the 1999 Ontario provincial election

There were a number of independent candidates in the 1999 Ontario provincial election, none of whom were elected. Some of these candidates have their own biography pages; information on others may be found here.

This page also covers independent candidates who campaigned in by-elections between 1999 and 2003.

Peterborough: Kenneth T. Burgess
Kenneth T. Burgess was a school teacher in Toronto before moving to Peterborough and was the creator of a self-help teaching service. He was a perennial candidate, having run for public office on at least six occasions. He died in May 2001.

He took the Peterborough County School Board to court in 1989, after the board appointed an unelected replacement to fill a vacancy. He argued that either a by-election should have been called, or he should have been appointed as the runner-up candidate from the last board election. (The chair of the board responded that the appointment of another applicant was appropriate and that a by-election would have been "extremely expensive.") Burgess was later convicted of forging some of the signatures on his nomination papers when he ran for school trustee again in the 1991 municipal election. Because of this conviction, he was barred from running for Mayor of Peterborough in 1997.

Burgess was sixty-five years old during his final run for office in 2000. During this election, he called for the City of Peterborough to offer free land to create development and reduce business tax levels. Incumbent mayor Sylvia Sutherland dismissed this practice as being illegal in Ontario.

He is not to be confused with Ken Burgess, a former mayor Brandon, Manitoba.

Sudbury: Ed Pokonzie
Ed Pokonzie is a perennial candidate for political office, having campaigned in federal, provincial and municipal elections. He first ran for election municipally in 1991.

Pokonzie was a city employee and labourer in Calgary, Alberta in the early 1980s. He was fired in 1981 for failing to pass a "permanency" medical test, and later became involved in a complicated legal challenge regarding his dismissal. He then moved to Ontario, and settled in the city of Sudbury. He launched a $5 million lawsuit against the Government of Ontario in 1999, citing wrongful treatment over his failure to obtain compensation for workplace injuries. The suit was dismissed in 2004. In 2000, Pokonzie identified himself as a former truck driver on a disability pension.

Pokonzie is often described as a social activist, and has called for a grassroots approach to city politics. He was an early supporter of amalgamation, though he also called for smaller centres to retain their local identity in the new city of Greater Sudbury. He also supported a light transit system, and pay-for-service assessment. Pokonzie called for the municipal administration to be restructured in 2003, arguing that there were six different agencies overseeing water quality without anyone having effective management authority.

Pokonzie is known for wearing a beret bedecked with medals while campaigning.

Windsor—St. Clair: Ralph Kirchner
Kirchner was 28 years old at the time of the election, a lifelong Windsor resident, and a Chrysler worker. On announcing his candidacy, he promised to bring more democracy to the political system if elected. Kirchner advocated expanding the public health care system to cover dental care, prescription drugs and eyeglasses. He denied being a radical in his views, and claimed he entered the race out of frustration with Ontario's partisan system. (Windsor Star, 19 May 1999) He received 263 votes (0.68%), finishing fifth out of six candidates. The winner was Dwight Duncan of the Ontario Liberal Party.

Beaches—East York, 20 September 2001: Kevin Mark Clarke
Clarke is a perennial candidate for public office in Toronto. See his biography page for more information.