u/alpacyabags

To recap, Mayoral candidate Alex Lawson supports the convoy, endorsed calls for the convoy to bring a revolution to Ottawa, and has suggested he will “burn down” city hall if he doesn’t get his way. 

Fitting into this pattern, he has used his company, Capital Framers, to illegally try to get donations for conservative politicians. Attached are pictures of him using the company to drive donations to politicians or attract people to events. I’m told that promoting events like this counts as an illegal in-kind contribution from a corporation. Lawson is a moron so he probably doesn’t even know this, but it proves that if this guy somehow does become Mayor, he really won’t care about limits on his power and will probably keep trying to break the law. Scary to think about considering the “strong mayor” powers Doug Ford gave mayors.

His company was also used to benefit the convoy. He apparently delivered portapotties to the occupiers with the help of at least one employee (this was pointed out by a redditor and a conservative actually sent a DM saying it was true). While I don’t have a smoking gun on that yet, (he locked his Instagram and deleted a bunch of other social media content) attached are a few pictures which, while hard to make out, appear to be Lawson working on a roof for a convoy occupier building in confederation park…. This was from Canadian Press. There are more pictures from the day that appear to show him. Here’s a news story; some of the journalists with tweets in that story have videos that appear to show him.

So, before running for Mayor, he was using his company to break the law to advance partisan conservative causes. He wants a revolution and wants to burn it all down if he can’t get his way. He was willing to not just join the convoy protesters but to openly work to support their occupation, including with his company. He’s already polling close to 15% and, if he keeps gaining and if there’s a messy vote split, he could become Mayor. His campaign launch is on Saturday and I’m worried that our corporate media might be lining up to actually support him, given that they are refusing to hold him accountable for any of this.

Thanks to people for sending me things and the nice messages of support. I’ll keep posting updates as I get them.

Last week, I posted about Alex Lawson’s history of supporting the most insane elements of the convoy and the fact that he thought a revolution overthrowing the government would be “a start” to what he wants to see done to the government. I think it’s important that progressives rally behind putting sunlight on this loser.

That thread led to a bunch of people reaching out to me and sharing examples of similar comments and behaviour from Lawson. I’m doing my best to put that all together and verify it. I should have more to share soon.

In the meantime, one comment I got back came from someone who claimed to be a member of the public who attended a Sarsfield Community Association meeting a couple weeks ago. Lawson spoke to them and was asked what he’d do if he can’t accomplish his agenda as mayor. He responded that if he can’t get his way then:

"I'll burn the place down"

I thought this was a bit much, even for him… but I reached out to someone who I know who lives out there and has friends in Sarsfield to see if this is true. They checked in with 3 different people who were in the room (including someone very involved in the community association) and they all verified that Lawson actually said it.

So here’s what we know about the guy:
- he advocated for a revolution during the convoy occupation and thought they should go further
- he still believes in burning things down when he doesn’t get his way

This is dangerous. It’s not acceptable. His campaign launch is Saturday and our mega-corp media isn’t even covering this.

Also: the other thing that came up in Sarsfield. He doesn’t even speak French! This isn’t as important as the other stuff but still… it’s so arrogant to run for Mayor of Ottawa and not even bother to learn French.

I’ll be sharing more when I can verify it. Hopefully people get to know who this guy really is before they vote

A friend of mine who is more politically involved told me that they some evidence of some really disturbing remarks from Alex Lawson.

My curiosity got the better of me and I looked into it a bit. What I found is attached to the post.

Basically, just a few days before the Convoy arrived in Ottawa, Lawson was sharing anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories and asking his Facebook friends “what are we going to do about it?”. By “it” I think he meant vaccine mandates. A friend of his said that they needed to start prepping and “have a revolution”. They shared a poster advertising the convoy. Lawson liked that comment and picture and said “it’s a start.”

To be clear: a revolution is “a start” for Lawson. He was saying this while convoy extremists were planning to descend on our city to overthrow the government. If a revolution is “a start” one wonders what he would want to do next, or what he’d do if he somehow became Mayor.

I can’t be the only one who sees how insane this is. This isn’t garden variety Poilievre slop… it’s the kind of batshit that Pat King and the some of the other most extreme convoy types were peddling. It’s straight up dangerous.

Also, this is just what I could see on Lawson’s Facebook through a quick public search. Imagine what’s there that he deleted or that we can’t see unless we’re friends with him. I bet this is the tip of the iceberg.

I was so shocked reading it that I had to post about it. I had to. The public deserves to know who this guy is. The only thing he should be a “candidate” for is a no-fly list. I couldn’t keep this info to myself.

I see this as an opportunity for Jeff Leiper. He could call for Lawson to withdraw from the race. That would make him look like the leader we know he is and shut down this convoy clown while looking like he’s confident that he can win regardless of Lawson. Jeff is the one candidate who can credibly talk about how he fights against hateful people like Lawson. If Jeff leads the charge to get Lawson to end his campaign for mayor and it works, he’ll look like a hero to all the centrist and progressive people in Ottawa who want to see real leadership at City Hall. 

Ultimately though, I’m sharing this because it’s more important than mayoral politics. It’s about saving our city, closing a back door that could let the convoy types back in. 

I’m thinking about writing my (kinda right-wing) Councillor to get them on the record on this. We need to make sure council stands firm against any kind of convoy sympathizers. If there’s enough interest, I’d be open to protesting his campaign launch next weekend so that people know who this guy is and what he’s about. I don’t know anyone in media but hopefully a journalist sees this. If anyone has any other ideas about how to get the message out or put the pressure on, I think it’s really important that we do what we can to shut this guy down.

EDIT: I got some feedback about how I described my involvement with the Leiper campaign. I should have said that I’m a supporter, not a “Team Member”. Ive edited a bit of the narrative to try to make that clearer.

EDIT 2: I’ve made further changes to the post to focus it on what matters: Lawson’s disgusting comments. I’ve removed reference to where I first heard about these details - lots of people pointed out, in good faith I think, that the background info wasn’t helpful. Thanks for that feedback.