While the official date of the next federal election is not until Oct. 20, 2025, the local campaign got off to it’s unofficial start on Tuesday, Feb. 6, with a meet and greet host-ed by the Orléans Conservative Riding Asso-ciation for their candidate, Orléans East-Cumberland city councillor Matt Luloff.

About 150 people attended the event, where they were able to meet Luloff and listen to his first election speech. He began by dispelling any doubts anyone in the room might have had about his candidacy.

“Before we get into the meat and potatoes of what I’d like to say today, let’s deal with the elephant in the room, shall we? And I hear this all the time: but Matt, aren’t you a Liberal? You spent over a decade working for Liberals! You’re just an opportunist just trying to become the MP and you are not a true blue Conservative like Pierre! Well, I am going to let you in on a little secret: the Liberal Party left me quite some time ago.”

Luloff, who is a former member of the Armed Forces and a veteran of the Afghan War, went on to explain that although he once supported the Liberal Party, he became disillusioned with them over their lack of support for the military.

“I left federal politics in 2018 to run muni-cipally to serve my community at a more intimate level and to get away from the fact that a lot of what the Liberal government was doing did not sit right with me,” Luloff explained.

“I realized that the Liberal Party did not represent my core values. I believe in the right to private property and the right to free speech and intellectual freedom. I believe in small, efficient government and the lowest level of taxation possible to ensure the core competencies of government are met.

“I am a Conservative. Without hyphens. Without qualification and without equivo-cation. And I am running to be your next Member of Parliament.”

And Luloff is not the only former Liberal to run for the federal Conservatives. The late Royal Galipeau supported the Liberals all of his life before he was chosen to represent the Conservatives in the 2006 federal election and won. He was subsequently reelected in 2008 and 2011.

After explaining why he decided to run for the Conservatives, Luloff listed his many accomplishments as a city councillor over the past five years.

Finally, he addressed the issue of his run-ning to become a member of parliament while still fulfilling the duties of city councilllor.

There is nothing in the provincial Elections Act that prevents a city councillor from running for a higher office while still sitting on council. Orléans MPP Stephen Blais ran for the provincial legislature while sitting as a city councillor, and former Kanata North city councillor Jenna Sudds successfully ran for the Liberals in the 2021 federal election while serving on city council.

For the time being, Luloff plans to campaign in his spare time.

“Until the next election is called, my number one priority will be as the city councillor for Orléans East-Cumberland,” says Luloff.

Whenever the next federal election is called, Luloff plans to go on unpaid leave while splitting his time between the cam-paign trail and his duties as a city councillor.

During his speech last Tuesday, he also pledged to focus his campaign on the issues and not get involved in a clash of personalities.

“This is not going to be a dirty election. It should be about where we are now and where we are going as a country. It’s not about attacking people,” says Luloff.