One of Ontario’s most controversial local politicians will not be returning to city hall as an elected official next term.
Following a chaotic four years, voters rejected former city councillor Lisa Robinson’s bid to become mayor of Pickering, Ontario and instead re-elected Mayor Kevin Ashe to a second-term.
According to unofficial results posted on the City of Pickering’s website, Ashe secured 36.5% of the vote compared to 24.8% for Robinson.
Robinson, who has repeatedly associated with far-right political figures and gained a significant online following with the convoy movement, cited her many clashes on city council as a reason for seeking the mayor’s office, going so far as to describe herself in campaign materials as a “symbol of resistance.”
“If they can silence a councillor, they can silence a resident,” Robinson’s website says.“I have become a symbol of resistance for every resident who feels ignored.”
Robinson did not respond to a request for comment from The Watchdog about the result of the election.
During the last city council, Robinson faced sanctions several times and city hall was forced to end public hearings due to repeated disruptions by her supporters, a number of whom were from out-of-town and linked to far-right conspiracy groups.
In 2021, Robinson was dropped as a federal Conservative candidate over Islamophobic tweets (Robinson at the time denied tweeting the messages from an account under her name). A few months later, she attended the Freedom Convoy and addressed a crowd while it occupied the streets of Ottawa.
Later in 2022, Robinson was elected city councillor. Over the next few years, Robinson would find herself at the centre of numerous controversies, including denouncing Black history month, appearing on a far-right influencer’s podcast and speaking at a far-right event headlined by Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch far-right influencer, and Christine Anderson, a German politician from the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland party.
In 2024, as Robinson’s online followers descended on Pickering, the Toronto Star described Robinson as the leader of an “alt-right siege” on city hall.
At the time, local leaders expressed frustration over their inability to deal with unruly politicians who repeatedly disrupt city business. Robinson’s behaviour prompted calls for the province to give municipalities new powers to remove local politicians from office in exceptional circumstances.
“I think it’s diminished democracy because people are staying away from our chambers because of the chaos and havoc that Councillor Robinson and her supporters have caused,” Mayor Ashe said at the time.
“We have police there each meeting now … It’s caused our community to feel unsafe.”
Ashe and other city councillors repeatedly complained about people coming to Pickering from as far away as Mattawa with grievances rooted in conspiratorial beliefs.
“It's a mish-mash of conspiracy theories,” Ashe recalled. “They talk about UN globalization, they talk about the prisons of 15 minute cities, chemtrails and the government controlling our climate, they deny climate change, they talk about that we’ve signed the wrong oath, that we’re corporate UN charter people or something — I don’t even understand it to be honest.”
Councillor Mara Nagy, who was also re-elected Monday night, also recalled at the time dealing with people talking about everything from “chemtrails” to a “space force military tribunal.”
“We’ve heard about crickets in the food, we hear about 15 minute cities — that’s the absolute biggest one that we hear most often — the WEF and that we are all agents of the UN globalist agenda … They sound separate when you just list them off separately, but it all ties into each other, it’s all part of the same big conspiracy movement.”
“We have residents tell us that they’re afraid, they’re afraid to come to council and be here because they don’t know what what they’re going to walk into.”
In addition to Robinson, Shaun Rickard, an individual who was also part of a group that launched a lawsuit against the federal government’s travel vaccine mandate, also threw his hat in the ring for mayor.
Rickard received 9.2% of votes.
