Candidate profile: Martin Tempelman

THUNDER BAY — Martin Tempelman is the New Blue party candidate for Thunder Bay-Atikokan.

Lower taxes and less “government meddling” are key priorities for Tempelman, a carpenter and business owner. 

Tempelman decries diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; “If you put DEI in one arrangement, it spells die.”

He describes the right-wing New Blue party as “closer to libertarian with some proper accountability.”

“The way we function in Ontario is in different spheres and each one — whether it's government, individuals, family, places of worship, etc. — each sphere is as important as the next,” said Tempelman.

“Even though they may overlap and intersect, one should not be meddling in the other one to the extent that we see today with the government in certain areas. They have to stop meddling, using people's taxes unnecessarily.”

“If people want to have coloured sidewalks and raise flags, those people who are interested in that (should) raise their own funds and provide their own resources,” he said. “It's the realm of woke, which Patty Hajdu alludes to as being OK.”

According to his biography, Tempelman is a carpenter and owner of a construction company. He has worked as chief building officer in four municipalities, maintaining conveyor belts for mines, mills and elevators in the region.

The trades are another area where he wants to see less government involvement.

“I believe that if we took out 90 per cent of the policies concerning what we do in the trades, Ontario would be much better, stronger, and more economically, fiscally responsible,” he said.

The trucking industry is another matter. It’s one area where Tempelman, who said he drove a logging truck in the 1970s and for the past two winters a snow plow, wants to see more regulation.

“People without the experience of winter up in the north should go through some kind of an apprenticeship or some kind of a graded system to get their driver's license. It's not fair for the thousands of people who are in Ontario,” he said. “I’m scared to ride on our roads.”

Tempelman is one of six candidates running for the Thunder Bay–Atikokan seat in the 2025 provincial election. His name will appear on the ballot along with the Green Party’s Eric Arner, the PC Party of Ontario’s Kevin Holland, the Ontario Liberal Party’s Stephen Margarit, the NDP’s Judith Monteith-Farrell and the Northern Ontario party’s K.C. Jones.