Northern Ontario Heritage Party
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Northern Ontario Party
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| Active provincial party | |
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| Leader | Trevor Holliday |
| President | Ed Deibel |
| Founded | 1977, and again in 2010 |
| Headquarters | 1415 McKeown Ave North Bay, ON P1B 7M7 |
| Ideology | Increased powers for Northern Ontario |
| Colours | Brown |
| Website | |
| www |
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The Northern Ontario Party, called the Northern Ontario Heritage Party (NOHP) until 2016, is a provincial political party in Ontario, Canada. It was formed in 1977 to campaign for provincial status for Northern Ontario. No member was ever elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. The party disbanded in 1985, and remained inactive until being revived and re-registered by Elections Ontario in 2010.
The party's founder, Ed Deibel of North Bay, travelled Northern Ontario in the late 1960s and early 1970s to promote the idea of creating a separate province, and to sign up supporters for the party.
The party later dropped the idea of a separate province from its platform, and continued to promote Northern Ontario's interests within Ontario. However, the idea of a separate province was restored to the party's platform in 2016.
The NOHP had its roots in the April 1973 provincial budget, in which the Government of Ontario proposed to extend the seven per cent provincial sales tax to heating and electricity. Deibel notified the local media that he would go to jail before paying the tax. This led to a meeting of about 500 people, and the formation of a tax repeal committee chaired by Deibel. The committee collected 24,000 signatures from all over Northern Ontario on a petition, and the government ultimately withdrew the proposal.
On May 16, 1973, Deibel formed a committee to discuss this idea, and began research about Northern Ontario’s problems. Deibel travelled Northern Ontario recruiting 600 members for the new province committee, and obtaining 6,000 signatures on a petition requesting that a vote be given to Northern Ontario on the question of forming a new province.
In October 1974, Deibel pitched a tent at Queen's Park, site of Ontario’s legislative assembly, for three days, and gave interviews to the media. This led to a half-hour private meeting with Premier William Davis, who refused to allow a plebiscite.
In the spring of 1975, Deibel wrote to Premier Davis, offering to abandon the new province committee if the government met seven demands:
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Wikipedia