Pundits' Guide

The Conservative Party’s campaign director, Senator Doug Finley, was threatening an election Thursday afternoon, after a number of opposition Senators voted to remove clauses from the omnibus budget implementation bill at the Senate Finance Committee.  From the Canadian Press story filed after the meeting:

Finley said he’s hopeful senators will eventually bow to the will of the elected Commons, which has already approved the bill. But if they don’t, he said: “Let’s dance.”

“We’re ready to go to an election if we have to. The buses, the planes, the trains, the money, the war room — everything’s ready to rock and roll,” said Finley.

“We’re in good shape for an election.”

The Senator’s comments are being taken reasonably seriously by some political watchers, and I would include myself in that category.  While others believe either that the specific issues being excised from Bill C-9 (the right to sell AECL without parliamentary approval, the elimination of the monopoly on international postal delivery for Canada Post, the environmental assessment provisions, and the tax on financial services) would not make very good election issues (being argued by Adam Radwanski for example), or that Senator Finley is rattling his annual sabre as campaign director to keep his own troops on their toes throughout the summer (a wise insight of Greg Weston’s on this evening’s CBC Power & Politics show, scroll to 44:50), I am with the group who believes the general issue of “parliamentary gridlock”, perhaps coupled with “unelected Senators thwarting the will of the elected Commons”, might be thought to give good enough cover to call an election during an opponent’s moment of weakness, much as was argued by Nik Nanos a few weeks ago in the Hill Times.  This is notwithstanding the contention by the Globe and Mail’s Gloria Galloway or NDP blogger the Jurist that in fact the budget bill will probably wind up being passed unamended when it finally reaches the Senate floor on third reading.

UPDATE:  And I should add that the Prime Minister’s spokesperson Dimitri Soudas is saying that Canadians do not want an election and the prime minister “is not looking to call an election this fall.”  Which is either a definitive No, or definitive deniability, depending which way you were already leaning on that question.

In any event, Senator Finley covers a lot of the ground in terms of what election readiness means, but of course the one other aspect is nominations progress, and high time it is for an update of that!  Let’s start with the party currently rattling all those sabres.

• Dauphin – Swan River – Marquette, MB – We earlier noted that wildlife conservationist Robert Sopuck had been running for the nomination in this now open Conservative seat (incumbent Inky Mark having announced his retirement over a year ago), but it was unclear from his website and other online evidence whether he was officially nominated or not.  Thanks to a reader for getting in touch to confirm that indeed Mr. Sopuck was acclaimed last Oct 19, 2009.  His only declared opponent so far is returning Green Party candidate organic farmer Kate Storey, who was her party’s second nominated candidate across the country for this election cycle back on March 24, 2009.  Mark first won the seat for the Reform Party in 1997 on a four-way split against one-term Liberal M.P. Marlene Cowling, a PC candidate and a New Democrat, but chalked up solid majorities in every subsequent election, regardless of the banner he carried, and without spending even half the spending limit in the last three elections.  (PS, It looks like the Google Map is not working for this riding, probably because it’s so detailed that the KMZ file exceeded 4 MB.  There’s a way for me to simplify those files, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet).
• York Centre, ON – Fast-forwarding up a bit closer to the present, Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor announced a few weeks ago on Twitter that Mark Adler, founder of the Economic Club of Canada, would be running in this riding.  When I looked it up, I learned that he had been acclaimed back on April 22.  Adler is taking over from 2008 candidate Rochelle Wilner in one of the three North Toronto ridings where the Conservatives moved to within 5-6% of their Liberal incumbents last time out.  He’ll be running against three-term Liberal M.P. Ken Dryden, a former cabinet minister and leadership candidate for his party, who was first elected as part of the Class of 2004 after the retirement of three-term Liberal M.P. Art Eggleton (later appointed to the Senate), and will also be running against returning NDP candidate Kurtis Baily (who is active in his party’s Aboriginal Affairs Commission), and first-time Green candidate Christina de Souza (no biographical information available at time of writing).  The last election saw Dryden’s share of eligible voters drop by some 9 points, with Wilner picking up 1.5 of them and the rest staying home, while the NDP and Greens held a steady 10 percent of the electorate between them (the same share going back to 2004).  Most of the Conservatives’ growth in vote here actually came between 2004 and 2006, and is now found in the north-east part of the riding.  Still, with a 52.3% turnout in 2008, they came within 8.8 votes per poll of benching Dryden, and certainly outspent him 96% of the limit to 86% trying to do so.  Neither of the two main parties has a riding association return posted at Elections Canada for 2009 as yet.  [I should add here that I babysat for Ken and Lynda back in 1979-80, when I was at Carleton, he was doing his bar admission exams at the University of Ottawa, and they rented a house up the street from my parents’ place.  My only brush with hockey fame.]
• Lethbridge, AB – As we first reported on Twitter, business consultant Jim Hillyer won a 5-way contested nomination on June 19, 2010 to carry the flag for the Conservatives in this southwest Alberta riding, which has been won by some flavour of Conservative candidate with over half the vote since anyone can remember.  Hillyer will now join returning 2008 candidates Mark Sandilands of the NDP, a retired University of Lethbridge professor, and Geoffrey Capp of the Christian Heritage Party, a security guard in Lethbridge who previously ran for his party numerous times in Yukon.  Hillyer takes over the Conservative candidacy from five-term M.P. Rick Casson, who announced his retirement earlier this year.
• Mississauga South, ON – Meanwhile not only do the walls have ears, but so do Go Train passengers; as an intrepid Pundits’ Guide correspondent overhead there a few weeks ago a conversation about the status of the Conservative nomination in this riding.  It seems that Stella Ambler, who ran in nearby Bramalea – Gore – Malton, ON in 2008, was acclaimed as candidate the previous night (which would have been June 28), and the rather loud passengers who had apparently been at the meeting said something to the effect that “[2008 candidate] Hugh Arrison had declared a few months earlier his intentions to run, but apparently he received some pressure from the party that they wanted a ‘new face’ for the riding, particularly a female one.”  Ambler, a long-time party activist and most recently Director of Regional Affairs for Jim Flaherty, moved into the riding a year ago, and says she wants to replace the “mediocre Liberal representation” she believes it’s had.  The riding has been represented since 1993 by Liberal M.P. Paul Szabo, but while he did say he’d be running again were the election to be held last fall, according to one of our readers he also said at the time that were it come to come later, he might have to “rethink his priorities“.  A chartered accountant, Szabo has run here since [UPDATE:] first ran here in 1980, finally winning after the 1993 retirement of reknowned Conservative M.P. and maverick Chair of the Commons Finance Committee, Don Blenkarn, and obtaining 44%-52% of the vote on his successful outings.  Still, this is another riding where the Liberal share of eligible voters has been dropping over the past two elections, and notably had Hugh Arrison maintained his party’s raw vote from 2006 under Phil Green, he would have been able to defeat Mr. Szabo, whose percent of eligible electors also fell by the same 4 points or so, in spite of ramping up his spending from 57% of the limit in 2006 to 83%.  The Conservatives appear to be strongest in the middle of the riding, Lorne Park, and indeed that’s where Ms. Ambler and her family moved to, this time last year, as she says on her website.  Running for the NDP is first-time candidate Farah Kalbouneh, a young woman of Palestinian-Jordanian background, best known for her involvement with the Yalla Journal (a Jewish-Palestinian youth dialogue project).  The Greens also have a new candidate, for this riding anyway, in Paul Simas; an airline service director and sea cadet lieutenant.  Simas, who was born in Brazil, previously ran federally in 2004 in the neighbouring riding of Mississauga – Brampton South.  Thanks to a Twitter follower for that name.

In other Conservative candidate news:

• Thunder Bay – Superior North, ON – I always learn something new sifting through the various political blogs, and that’s how I found out that Conservative candidate Michael Auld, who won a very closely contested nomination in this riding this time last year after a coin toss broke the tie, has apparently had to step down to take care of some health concerns.  The riding association issued a news release to that effect on June 17, covered by TBNewswatch.com.  While Richard Longtin of Lakehead University is declared as one candidate to replace him, Nipigon Mayor Richard Harvey, whom Auld defeated last year for the nomination, has also now announced that he intends to run again.  Should he be successful in winning the nomination, Harvey would be facing first-term NDP M.P. Bruce Hyer, who recently congratulated him for his role in the 10 years’ work of bring the Paddle-to-the-Sea park to Nipigon; and also lawyer Yves Fricot, the winner of last year’s 3-way contested Liberal nomination (who received a visit from Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff this past May).  Hyer won last time after running twice previously against former Liberal M.P. Joe Comuzzi, who left his party’s caucus after voting to support a Conservative budget, crossing the floor sometime later but then retiring at the next election.  Hyer had come within 408 votes of defeating Comuzzi in 2006, and won in 2008 with roughly the same raw vote (while doubling his campaign spending from 43% to 86% of the limit against an augmented Liberal budget as well), but a falling Liberal vote, some of which moved to the Conservatives’ Bev Sarafin, but most of which stayed home, turning the riding into a three-way race.  It remains a three-party race when looking at the riding associations’ year-end 2009 financial returns as well, with the Conservatives reporting net worth equivalent to 36% of the limit, while the Liberals reported 28% and the NDP 26%.  The Green Party has not nominated a candidate here as yet, while meantime the Marijuana Party registered a new riding association last autumn.  In any event, we send all best wishes to Mr. Auld for a successful and full recovery.
• Prince George – Peace River, BC – Although he’s made no formal announcement to that effect, many locals in Fort St. John are working under the assumption that long-time Conservative M.P. Jay Hill will retire before the next election, something he hinted at to John Ivison of the National Post last February after fellow B.C. Reform Class of 1993 member Jim Abbott announced his own retirement in Kootenay – Columbia, and which led the Prince George Citizen to speculate somewhat humourously on his possible replacements at the time.  Speculation heated up again more seriously when well-connected conservative blogger Alex Tsakumis wrote that BC Liberal-turned Independent MLA Blair Lekstrom (Peace River South, since 2001) had been “eyeing that seat”, and might consider switching and running federally.  Indeed Lekstrom, who had just resigned from Gordon Campbell’s cabinet and left the BC Liberal caucus to sit as an Independent over the HST issue, refused to rule out a run federally in a subsequent interview with local radio.  Hill, for whom getting anything less than 60% of the vote constitutes a tough election, has been mum on his future since the House adjourned, although I know he was being asked about it.  His wife Leah Murray however, who is well-known in Ottawa as an event planner, was just appointed as a Director with National Public Relations, a job that I don’t think would be inconsistent with her husband’s role in cabinet, but which would be a bit more high-profile for her.  No other party’s candidates have been selected as yet.
• Vaughan, ON – This one is hot off the presses from Vaughan Today’s Twitter feed, after the Globe and Mail reported earlier in the day that retiring OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino is not ruling out any future run politically.  Fantino, whose July 31 retirement was announced by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty on Wednesday but seemed to have been deliberately set for after the G-20 meeting concluded in Toronto, has been named as a possible candidate for mayor in Vaughan, or as its federal or provincial representative.  The mayoralty race there is already crowded, however, with long-time Liberal M.P. Maurizio Bevilacqua all but officially announced, and former Liberal MPP Mario Racco also in the race.  Meantime a provincial run would pit Fantino against his long-time friend MPP Greg Sorbara, something he has repeatedly rejected in the past.  For these reasons, former provincial PC leader and CFRB radio-host John Tory told the Globe he believes Fantino has a federal run in mind, and Vaughan Today is also now saying that it’s doubtful Fantino would run municipally, but that a federal run is likely.  This would certainly explain why such a potentially good Toronto-area Conservative seat, with the likelihood of no Liberal incumbent, would have been left unfilled on their slate for so long.  And Fantino, who could well have been called as a witness before any summer hearings of the Commons Public Safety Committee on G-8/G-20 security, now looks to be off the hook there as well, given that the Conservative members of the committee seem opposed to such a study.  Were he to run federally, he’d have a 15 point margin to make up, likely against a non-incumbent.  The NDP has also nominated a new candidate here, Kevin Bordian (no biographical information available at time of writing).  Interestingly, Bevilacqua’s domain-name from the last election is no longer registered, however mauriziobevilacqua.com is promising a new website soon.

Next up, the Liberals.  If you have nomination news to share from your part of the country, or niche in the political spectrum, why not drop us a line by email, or join in on Twitter @punditsguide.

Tags: 41st General Election Nominations, Conservatives, Election Timing, Retiring Incumbents, Vacant Seats