Greg Brady: I ran for office for the first time—and lost. Here’s what it’s like

I’ve only ever wanted to do three things in my adult life—I swear to you.

1) Be a sports broadcaster/talk show host

2) Be a news broadcaster/talk show host

3) Be a politician

We can’t have everything in life, but in the last seven weeks, with those first two goals already accomplished, I attempted the Brady Triple Crown.

A few weeks into March, with a federal election looming in Canada, I threw my hat in the ring, seeking the Conservative Party of Canada nomination in Ajax, Ontario, the place where my kids have grown up from birth, and the place we’ve now called home for 18 years.

Ajax is everything to me. Close enough to Toronto to properly get in and out to work, play, or see amazing things in Canada’s largest city. It’s also got a small-town feel to it, and whether you’re at the library, the gym, or youth sports, you are bound to see multiple people you know. It’s a vibe that just fit what my wife and I were looking for. So we planted deep roots here.

As someone who has absolutely not been a “lifelong” anything when it comes to political parties, and who often just wants good policies and good people proposing them, if you want to make change, you have to eventually make a big call. I did my research, I promise you. And the question was simple: where could I make the biggest difference in my community? How could I work to reverse the poor policies I saw across Canada—and, yes, even in idyllic Ajax—that I thought were clearly taking our country in the wrong direction?

I always say on the radio airwaves: “Big cities will have big city problems.” But in the last five years or so, I began to notice that Ajax was starting to have some of those big city problems, including rising crime rates, especially car thefts and store robberies. We also saw a rise in people experiencing homelessness, sleeping in bus shelters, or in bank ATM doorways. And one seemed to be doing enough or saying enough about the problem. Meanwhile, the cost of living was driving people I knew to leave Ajax—either to move further east, or right out of Canada. Ajax needed more people to be active and productive members of our community, not fewer. Good people were also leaving policing, nursing, and education, be it the frustration of their work based on government policy or issues of crime and safety or simple economics.

Why me? 

You have to have confidence in life, and maybe this was a time to puff my chest out, and humbly suggest I was the best person in Ajax to deliver the solutions to these pressing problems.

We had a great thing going on the 640 Toronto morning drive show—“Toronto Today with Greg Brady.” We were the most-listened to talk show in that time slot with key demographics advertisers want to spend dollars on. It may have been the most upsetting day for me emotionally to tell my boss, who helped craft the show into the success it has become, that while I loved radio and always will, this was something I needed to attempt to do for Canada, for Ajax, and, yes, for me. And so, I became a candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada.

Hitting the hustings 

I’m a pretty easy person to vet. Everything I’ve said is out in the open—on the air or on social media. Pierre and his team recognized that when I criticized them, it was never personal, and always about presentation or policy. The compliments and praise come from the same place. Once the screenings were over, I hit the hustings.

My campaign as a candidate consisted of 37 straight days of door-knocking, three shifts a day, separated by the odd event, rally, or announcement. I walked for about seven hours a day, racking up between 16,000 and 21,000 steps, almost without exception. I lost 11 pounds (I told my wife I lost 15, but this is the only dishonest statement I made on the campaign trail, I swear), and could have lost more if I had been able to eat properly. It’s a lot of fast food and ill-thought-out snacks, with a semi-proper dinner at home, that almost always was consumed around 10 p.m. at night. Never having sold a thing in my life (except hot takes on the radio), I didn’t know if I’d enjoy door-knocking. But by the end of my second day, I fell in love. I developed a rhythm and a cadence.

“I’m Greg Brady, I’m the Conservative candidate in Ajax—there’s a federal election on April 28, and how are we feeling about that?” was enough to usually stimulate a reaction one way or the other, and at times, kick off a wonderful conversation.

Are Canadians nice at the doors? YES. Almost universally. There were two or three terribly rude people out of a few thousand. It restored my faith, if it ever wavered, that we are surrounded by so many good people, and it’s the bad ones that get too much space in our brains.

The stories at the door were often intense. On a cold Friday night in early April, I sat on the porch with a man just recently diagnosed with fourth-stage terminal brain cancer. He’s a single dad with two teenage daughters. All he wanted was a pathway for them in their 20s—that we all had over a decade ago—that they don’t see now. Soon, tragically, they’ll likely have to navigate their way without their dad. Those are the people who wanted this as badly as I did.

I found a huge number of parents with adult kids living at home. Whatever you think the percentage is, I assure you it’s more. The most common age of those I met was between 25-32. They can’t save for a down payment to buy, while paying exorbitant costs of rent and utilities. And whether it was rhetoric, some offered a pledge they’d look to leave Ajax, and Ontario, and, in some cases, Canada, if things didn’t change quickly. My fear is that they won’t.

It’s amazing what you can learn after even the first couple hundred doors—you can tell when people have time to chat right away, and when they want you to scram. I could guess when someone truly was “undecided” as a voter, and when they were simply trying to move you along. I also had more than a few couples answer the door and explain that while one was voting for me, the other was not. I liked to try to sway the one that wasn’t. If that isn’t an idea for a radio segment, I don’t know what is. I learned—quickly—to listen more than talk.

What about Pierre? That part is easy for me. It’s been my job to compliment or criticize him throughout his career in politics. I take being authentic on the air seriously. If Pierre Poilievre or Justin Trudeau or a local Toronto councilor presents a great idea, or explains an idea well, my job is to say so—and if they have a bad moment or don’t seem like they’ve done the right things in the right place, I say so.

We got along great through this ride, and I have fantastic respect for how he treats people who adore him the same way he does for those who have tough questions for him. This would absolutely be the spot to gripe about something—but I have no gripes. He bet on me as his candidate, and I bet on him to create the message I’d deliver at the doors across Ajax.

The results 

What’s election day like? Generally terrible. You’re constantly wondering if you did too much of one thing and not enough of the other. You’d drive by businesses that had your sign in their window, and wonder, “How did I not know that was a supportive place before six hours away from polls closing, and how did I not get there in a 37-day election?”

So the regrets and the second-guessing did make me queasy.

As for my result, it wasn’t what I wanted. You win or you lose. We lost. That’s four Tory losses in a row here, but some wonderful growth.

In essence, four out of 10 people voted for me, 5.5 out of 10 people voted for the Liberal winner, and 0.5 people out of 10 voted for parties besides the Liberals or Conservatives. The NDP had 14.1 percent support in Ajax in 2021. This time? 2.7 percent. I didn’t see one NDP lawn sign or one piece of NDP literature the whole campaign. I’ll let you guess which party benefited and which party that was devasting for.

Lessons learned 

People have asked: would I have done anything differently? Our riding held no debate, and I’d have certainly participated in one if asked. But we had it on good authority that the Liberals felt they had too much to lose and declined that option early. Strategically, we also don’t benefit from doing a debate with an utterly uninvolved NDP candidate and the Green Party.

I would have liked to do more media, but I also see the strategy of keeping that limited. No matter what print interview or podcast I think I can handle skillfully, it’s likely more important to be on the streets working the doors, or speaking at a gathering of 90 voters at a church or mosque.

I loved visiting the places of worship. I loved learning how the various beliefs and commitments to faith influence political thinking. Even though this election is over, I’ve made new friends with all different beliefs, and I will keep going back to listen to their concerns about our community.

I loathe the idea of pandering for votes. If I ever do this again, I want these communities to know their concerns about Ajax, and Canada, are just as important as mine or anybody else’s. I didn’t grow up in a religious household, but I received a great education on why faith, family, and community can be so intertwined. So many people from so many faiths have felt utterly used and tokenized by this federal Liberal government, especially during these modern times of war and crisis.

Down but not out 

The defeat was crushing. I felt the emptiness after the tireless work our team, our tremendous volunteers, and campaign staffers put into this. I felt what it takes out of you.

Without the Freeland letter, the Trudeau resignation, the Trump threats, the Carney coronation—it would have all been a different result.

I learned a ton about political loyalty. We found people who had never voted Conservative before, federally, who were about to do just that. We also found longtime Conservatives who weren’t voting for the party because they were scared of Donald Trump. That was the card Carney played, and judging by exit polls, it only worked well for one generation: those over 60.

Compared to the last election in Ajax, we went from 26 to 39.4 percent. We went from 13,200 votes to nearly 25,500—all in a riding dominated by the Liberals in five of the last six trips to the polls. No CPC candidate (winning or losing) had ever received more than 20,000 votes in Ajax. In a different time, we did enough to win, but this time we lost.

It’s not a victory, but it is progress. It will always hurt not to have won, and I was equally upset for friends of mine who lost as well.– Yet other friends will go to Ottawa to represent the communities they’ve raised their families in. Those conversations have brightened my darker moments. So, I didn’t win—and it’s back to the best job I’ve ever had: hosting “Toronto Today” on 640 Toronto. I’m a better person than I was seven weeks ago. The listeners are getting a better talk show host coming back on Monday.

My radio family misses me, and I miss them. My real family misses me too, and I will treasure reconnecting with both of them.

Would I run again? Yes. But the stars have to align. All has to be settled in my own life, and the party and electoral district association must absolutely be in agreement that I’m the choice.

We will win the riding without Donald Trump’s rhetoric about the “51st state” dominating the conversation. We will win the riding if the debate is about prosecuting the Liberals’ record in government.

Thank you, Ajax—thank you to the Brady CPC voters, and the ones who didn’t vote for me this time. We all want the great community we know we can be.