His name is Scott.
Christopher Allen Winfield van Scott.
Quite a name. Quite a story.
By now, you've probably seen hundreds of snowbank signs (previously known as lawn signs during traditional spring elections) promoting Scott as the Sault's Progressive Conservative candidate in the Feb. 27 provincial election.
The Kemptville, Ont. political insider created quite a stir last week when PC Leader Doug Ford unilaterally declared him his Sault candidate with no vote from the local PC party faithful.
Local pundits raced to their social media accounts to dismiss him as a Doug Ford 'parachute' candidate.
Others accused Scott behind his back of campaigning under a fake name.
SooToday checked with the candidate and found out his real name isn't Scott, but van Scott.
What's the story behind that?
It turns out he legally changed his name when he got married six years ago.
"My wife's a first-generation immigrant from the Netherlands and we made a commitment together to honour her past and what we're building together, that we would legally change our names to van Scott so that all three of our kids are van Scotts and building something together.
"Female candidates kind of deal with this: you know, their married name versus their given name. Which one are you going to run with? I think I might be the reverse case of that because I'm a man that got married," Scott says.
"They were childhood sweethearts," says former Sault MPP Ross Romano, who is now running Scott's provincial election campaign.
"He's a pretty sentimental guy, I think," Romano says.
"When he and his wife got married, he thought it would be a nice way for them to start their family together under the van Scott name.
What did Elections Ontario say when Scott told them he didn't want to put his real name on the ballot?
"I've been approved as a candidate," he tells SooToday.
Chris Scott has been his first and most commonly used name throughout his working time at Queen's Park and Ross Romano's constituency office in Sault Ste. Marie.
Romano says that for six years, Scott spent most of his time in Sault Ste. Marie, living in a rental house downtown.
"[Elections Ontario] approved me as Chris Scott . . . that's how everyone knows me here and professionally down in Toronto as well," Scott says.
"What I did was I provided them my employee directory from Queen's Park and a couple other resources that made sure it was abundantly clear I wasn't trying to mislead anyone."
How did the Ford end up appointing Scott as Sault Ste. Marie's candidate?
"I know that I had spoken to Chris about running for the position, and he had expressed interest to me for a very long time," Romano says.
"We're going back now quite some time when there were very early rumblings about [a winter election], that there might be something.
"I learned some time thereafter from a member of the party who contacted me and asked if I had any feelings about the names that were expressing interest, of which I was only advised of two."
"I did say that I think Chris would be the absolute best MPP that we could possibly have in Sault Ste. Marie," Romano says.
"I said that I've never met anybody with more heart. I've never met anyone who has a better work ethic. He's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met in my life.
"He is absolutely an incredible human being and a wonderful person, an exceptional father, an incredible husband.
"I just don't think that we could possibly have a better person working on behalf of our city. So did I give him a recommendation? You're absolutely right. I did," Romano says.
"It's been quite some time he's been talking about how Sault Ste. Marie is such an amazing place to settle down and raise a family and with his own kids.
"He's been very excited about being able to call Sault Ste. Marie home. It's something that I know matters a lot to him, and it mattered a lot to me, and so I think we've always had that in common and he's been working hard for us for a long, long time."
"I'm just like every other candidate, the first step is submitting information for a vetting process, and then submitting your candidate nomination paperwork, which is done through the party," Scott says.
"This is an unscheduled election, and I think we all noticed that it was for sure happening when the premier said that he was going to do this the next week.
"I talked to people like Jason Naccarato and the riding association to see what they thought. I talked to Ross and see what he thought.
"Talked to a couple other community builders and key stakeholders that I thought were important and really had their finger on the pulse, and then decided to go ahead and submit my paperwork to the party.
"I then got notified back from the party that I was going to be selected as the candidate for the riding of Sault Ste. Marie, and was extremely excited by that news."
Already, people are starting to recognize Scott, even though most of his political and government work until now has been behind the scenes.
"I was at the Greyhound game and 45 seconds in, the most surreal thing happened to me," Scott says.
"I was standing in line to pick up the tickets, standing behind Ross Romano, and the two ladies in front of me turned around and they said 'Hey, I know you.' And they were talking to me."
"They had read the article from from your colleague on SooToday and funny story, they were like: 'You're born in Kemptville. We're going to look that up. It's a place way smaller than Sault Ste. Marie.' And we kind of laughed about that."