Pundits' Guide

Our catch up of Liberal nominations continues from the last post, as we move on to Ontario.

Ontario

Much easier to follow is the state of nominations in Ontario, owing to the well-documented list of meetings at the LPC-O website (thank you!). A few candidates have stepped down (we’ll get to them shortly), while a few more have joined the party ticket over the past few months, including:

• Barrie, ON – Paraplegic athlete and federal public servant Colin Wilson was acclaimed here last February 18, and will be taking a leave of absence from Public Works once the campaign begins. Wilson welcomed Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff to Barrie for two events Saturday as part of the Liberal Express summer tour. He’ll now be facing three-time candidate and two-term Conservative M.P. Patrick Brown, who narrowly defeated former Liberal M.P. Aileen Carroll in 2006, but went on to win over 52% of the vote in 2008 as the NDP largely held its vote, but the Liberals fell nearly 10,000 votes under candidate Rick Jones. 2,000 of them went to the Greens under three-time candidate Erich Jacoby-Hawkins, while 4,000 switched to Brown, and another 2,000 stayed home. The Green campaign here spent 63% of the limit, by the way, earning 11.1% of the vote — enough for a candidate rebate, but not enough to move out of fourth place and past the NDP, which kept its spending to a more modest 17% of the limit. Still, Jacoby-Hawkins must be hoping for a one-election lag in the return on that investment, as he’s running again for a fourth try, alongside Wilson and returning candidate Myrna Clarke for the NDP.
• Hamilton East – Stoney Creek, ON – This time last year, we were following the efforts of former mayor and candidate Larry Di Ianni to recruit his replacement as a candidate in this riding. Di Ianni ruled himself out, but tried and failed to recruit NDP city councillor Sam Merulla, followed by another city councillor, Maria Pearson. A year later, it was riding president Vito Sgro who found psychotherapist Michelle Stockwell, according to the Stoney Creek News, and she was acclaimed on March 11, 2010. She joined restauranteur Rob Silenzi, who was newly nominated for the Conservatives last fall, two-term NDP M.P. Wayne Marston, and returning Green Party candidate David Hart Dyke, chair of the Hamilton Waste Reduction Task Force. Looking at the results, it is hard to believe that the transposed riding boundaries here encompassed a Liberal vote of nearly 55% in 2000, representing over 24,000 voters. While the riding was a close Liberal-NDP and then NDP-Liberal contest in 2004 and 2006 (though Tony Valeri only held some 18,500 or so votes in those two contests), by 2008 the Liberal vote had fallen to 13,500 under Di Ianni, even as the Conservatives also fell slightly, the Greens picked up 500 votes, and the NDP held and slightly improved on its 2,000 gain from 2004-to-2006, reaching nearly 20,000 votes (or 41%) on Marston’s reelection in 2008 from a starting point of just 4,400 (or 10%) back in 2000. It just goes to show that 10% seats, if in traditional areas of strength having the right demographics, with the right national campaign and local candidate, can still turn into surprises on election day — an election or two down the road.
• Nickel Belt, ON – Unlike its neighbouring riding Sudbury, this riding sat without any apparent Liberal candidate interest for quite a while, but then broke out into a contested nomination in the spring between the owner of two local radio stations and former miner, Joe Cormier, and Jacqueline Gauthier of Sudbury who runs a community health centre. Cormier won the split decision on May 15, 2010 with 328 of 800 members voting, according to the Sudbury Star. With the advice of former M.P. Ray Bonin, he will now face first-time NDP M.P. Claude Gravelle, who finally overtook Bonin’s replacement Louise Portelance after two earlier runs against Bonin himself, as the Liberal vote fell to nearly half its 2000 levels, the vast majority of the drop just staying home in 2008. No other party’s candidates have been selected as yet, although the Green Party’s 2008 candidate Fred Twilley tried unsuccessfully to win did win his party’s nod in Sudbury next door.  [Sorry about that, Mr. Twilley!]
• Carleton – Mississippi Mills, ON – Another contested Liberal nomination unfolded about two weeks later in this riding located just west of Ottawa, with the result that a retired lieutenant-colonel will be challenging a retired general. Karen McCrimmon, the first woman to lead an air squadron as Commanding Officer of 429 Squadron in Trenton, won the preferential ballot on May 27 over author Bernie Muzeen, lawyer and advocate for the hearing impaired Scott Simser, and business systems coordinator for the Social Services department, Bev Miller, with approximately 150 members voting. Her nomination would have rounded out the Liberal slate for the Ottawa-area (National Capital Region) and Eastern Ontario ridings, but for the resignation of two area candidates which we’ll get to shortly. McCrimmon will be facing three-time Conservative M.P. and retired general Gordon O’Connor, whose vote share has increased from 50% to 57% over the last three elections in this redistributed riding, as the Liberal vote has fallen in spite of running increasingly well-funded campaigns. Still McCrimmon may be counting on the Nortel retirees issue, along with the possibility that having qualified for the MP’s pension and passing the age of 70, Mr. O’Connor might run for at most one more term. But with the Conservative riding association there sitting on assets of $172K (or 177% of the spending limit) at the end of 2009, any potential successor of his would be easily able to run a well-financed campaign.
• Elgin – Middlesex – London, ON – The sponsor of a luncheon to thank Conservative M.P. Joe Preston and his provincial Liberal counterpart for their tireless work in securing stimulus funds will now be one of Preston’s opponents in the next election, as Liberals were set to meet this past Thursday July 15 to formalize the acclamation of outgoing West Elgin Mayor Graham Warwick as their standard-bearer for the upcoming campaign. He joins returning NDP candidate and CAW Local 2168 president Ryan Dolby, and new federal Green Party candidate John Fisher who has previously run for his party at the provincial level. I don’t have a date for Mr. Fisher’s nomination, in order to add him to the database, and he’s not on the party’s public list of candidates as yet, but I am continuing to investigate (and if you can help, please get in touch by email). The riding’s Google Map demonstrates Preston’s dominance, and yet because of the area’s employment problems during the recession and the party’s confidence in Dolby, the NDP named this riding as one of its HST targets late last year, and indeed Dolby won more geographic polls than the Liberal candidate in 2008 (mainly in St. Thomas and 2 in the London area), in spite of the Liberals’ continued hold on second-place and the fact that Dolby’s campaign spent just 15% of the limit last time around. The West Elgin area from which Mr. Warwick hails boasted one of the two polls won by the Liberals last time. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is coming through the area on his way from London to Chatham the first week of August, but so far is not expected to stop there.

In other Ontario nomination news:

• Ottawa West – Nepean, ON – Readers may recall the hiccups encountered by former Liberal M.P. David Pratt on his way to re-securing his party’s nomination in this Ottawa-area bellwether riding, when he was briefly challenged by Janet Yale last July, nearly necessitating his return to Ottawa from Iraq where he had contract commitments in order to defend his candidacy. Yale demurred however and tried to win the nomination in Ottawa Centre, ON instead, allowing Pratt to stay on in Iraq. However on April 1 this year with no election on the horizon at the time, Pratt announced that his increasing commitments outside Canada prevented him from continuing as candidate, and he stepped down. Since then a nomination contest has been developing, which includes Hill denizen and long-time Liberal insider Anita Vandenbeld, and University of Ottawa eBusiness and Computer Science professor Nour El-Kadri who had been selling memberships to win the nomination once before, prior to the 2008 election when Pratt was appointed by then-leader Stéphane Dion. It is unknown when the nomination meeting will be held, however the successful candidate will be facing two-term Conservative M.P. John Baird, and returning NDP candidate Marlene Rivier, a psychological associate and Chair of the Ottawa Health Coalition, along with new Green Party candidate, organic entrepreneur Mark Mackenzie. The Liberals and Conservatives riding associations were both sitting on fairly large bank balances at the end of 2009, the latter twice as large as the former, however ($150K vs. $75K, or 170% vs. 85% of the riding spending limit).
• Ancaster – Dundas – Flamborough – Westdale, ON – The Liberals’ star catch from last August in this riding just outside Hamilton, the former CHCH-TV anchor Dan McLean, stepped down suddenly on June 7 of this year. Speculation ranged from a mayoralty bid in Hamilton (although that was subsequently denied), to various difficulties with the riding association, according to a Pundits’ Guide commenter the other week, although in his statement McLean stressed that he remained a supporter of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. Nevertheless, his departure leaves Michelle Stockwell in Hamilton East – Stoney Creek, ON as the party’s only nominated candidate in the Hamilton area. The riding is currently held by two-term Conservative M.P. David Sweet, who was able to defeat one-term Liberal M.P. Russ Powers by less than 5% of the vote in 2006 through drawing previous non-voters out to the polls, and then continued to increase his raw vote in 2008 by 2,400, as the Liberal vote dropped a further 6,400, and the NDP shed 3,800 votes as well. Only the Greens under new candidate Peter Ormond were able to improve upon their 2006 result in opposition, and indeed Ormond is back for another try this time. He and Sweet will also be joined by first-time candidate Alex Johnstone, who defeated another young woman Shilo Davis (later one of the the organizers of the anti-prorogation rallies) to win the contested NDP nomination last November. No word on the Liberal riding’s candidate search plans, but we’ll keep a look out.
• Prince Edward – Hastings, ON – A recent marriage and 10-month old baby were behind the decision of Liberal candidate Ken Cole to step down a week later in this eastern Ontario riding, reported the Belleville Intelligencer. Cole had been acclaimed last August, and was expecting to face three-term Conservative M.P. Daryl Kramp and three-time NDP candidate retired teacher Michael McMahon in the next campaign. Candidate search is to recommence immediately, riding president Bryan Bondy told the Intelligencer, although one hoped-for nominee, Belleville Mayor Neil Ellis, was planning another municipal run instead he said. Meanwhile, for the reasons we speculated on in the earlier post on Michael Ignatieff’s bus tour, indeed they did skip over Belleville, an omission that was noted locally. This riding was formerly held by Liberal M.P. Lyle Vanclief, who bested former provincial cabinet minister and leadership contestant Dennis Timbrell twice, owing to strong campaigns by first the Reform and then Canadian Alliance candidates. The merger of those two parties’ raw vote was sufficient on its own to surpass the Liberals in 2004, notwithstanding the tripling of the NDP vote over the same time period. Since then the Liberals have shed 6,000 votes, of which 4,000 switched to Kramp, and another 2,000 either stayed home or voted Green.
• Kingston and the Islands, ON – So, now that Commons Speaker Peter Milliken has confirmed he’s not running again, four candidates have already stepped forward to announce bids for a Liberal nomination race that is promised to be “free and fair“, and concluded by the fall. Running are a businessman who chairs an alternative energy coalition, riding association treasurer Ted Hsu; the Dean of the Queen’s University Law School and riding vice-president, Bill Flanagan; local lawyer and former riding president Philip Osanic (who is married to city councillor Lisa Osanic); along with the retiring mayor of Kingston, Harvey Rosen, who was introduced by Milliken’s sister at his announcement, although Flanagan stood behind Milliken himself at his barbecue retirement announcement. Kingston This Week did a rundown of the four candidates, as did the Kingston Herald across two stories. And according to this Whig Standard story from Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s bus visit of the other day, several more candidates may yet be testing the water, such as perhaps former city councillor Bittu George who has been mentioned before but has yet to announce plans. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have been targeting the riding with mailings and phone calls over the past year, Liberal riding president Ron Hartling told the Whig Standard. The successful candidate will join Conservative candidate Brian Abrams, NDP candidate Daniel Beals, and Green candidate Eric Walton on the campaign trail. We last ran down the riding’s history and profile here, when Milliken’s retirement was first speculated upon.
• Vaughan, ON – We recently looked at this riding northwest of Toronto in the contest of who might run for the Conservatives here, but who might run if as expected long-time Liberal M.P. Maurizio Bevilacqua steps down to run for Mayor (something he hotly denied interest in doing during the last federal election, while refusing to rule it out either; viz: “‘I don’t blame people for thinking of me,’ said Bevilacqua. ‘There aren’t that many people around the community that has experience in that. … If it was me, I would think of me, if you know what I mean’,” as he told the Toronto Star). Bevilacqua was originally expected to step down around May 1, but was involved in negotiations with Jason Kenney over provisions of the Refugee Bill until early June, at which point the Liberal Caucus interceded. This may have delayed any announcement on his part, although as we reported earlier, MaurizioBevilacqua.com is promising a new website soon, and there’s no Liberal logo on the splash page. In any event, while the last election saw Bevilacqua winning with some 50% of the vote, he lost 9,000 votes over the previous election, 3,000 of whom switched to the Conservatives’ Richard Lorello, and the other 6,000 of which stayed home, and indeed his margin has been whittled down over the years from 63% (yes, you read that right) in the transposed results of the 2000 election, to just under 15% in 2008.
• Chatham-Kent – Essex, ON – Liberal candidate Steve Pickard is facing six charges in relation to an unspecified dust-up with three individuals at the Chatham city council building, but is returning to work at council this coming Monday evening, the Chatham Daily News reports. According to the QMI Agency (the former Sun Media), Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is sticking with Pickard, but refusing to comment on the charges themselves. The son of former Liberal M.P. Jerry Pickard, Steve Pickard won a contested nomination against the son of another former Liberal M.P., Matt Daudlin, for the right to face two-term Conservative M.P. Dave Van Kesteren. According to the draft schedule of the tour, which was obtained by Public Eye Online, Ignatieff’s bus will be arriving in Chatham on Sunday, August 8, and so we’ll see how that’s all handled then.
• Essex, ON – Another question mark we’ll get more information on in that leg of the Liberal Express relates to the political future of Essex Liberal candidate Nelson Santos. Currently the mayor of Kingsville, Santos made noises this past March that he might step down as Liberal candidate to take another run for the mayor’s chair, telling the Windsor Star that he would announce a definitive decision by June (note: the only copy of this story I can find online anymore is at the Blogging Tories site, but I did see the original at the time). This announcement came after some nasty dispute within the county became public, but also followed on a call by three-time Conservative M.P. Jeff Watson last fall for Santos to step down from his municipal role after receiving the federal Liberal nomination. Santos said in March that he prided himself on completing terms of office he was elected to, and would thus pick either the municipal run or the federal nomination, not both. Naturally, his possible renewed candidacy coupled with a delay in finalizing it did not prove popular with other potential mayoral candidates, and so at the beginning of April Kingsville city councillor Chris Lewis announced his campaign on a “Kingsville First” platform, and called on Santos “to end the hedging of his electoral bets”, saying he was running for Mayor whether Santos eventually decided to or not. Then with no announcement from Santos by the beginning of June either, deputy mayor Katherine Gunning lived up to her name and announced she too was running for Mayor, and “wasn’t budging, no matter what … Santos decides”. The possibility of a delayed federal election seemed to have been what changed Santos’ mind on the importance of only running for one job at a time, per his explanation to the Windsor Star: “If the federal election isn’t for two years, which may be a potential scenario, then maybe I’ll revisit the campaigning for mayor”. Meanwhile, a tornado hit Leamington and the outskirts of Kingsville a few days later, and Santos has had nothing to say about his political future since then. Besides Santos and Watson, the NDP’s Taras Natyshak (who placed second here in 2008) is also running, and this riding was named as one of his party’s HST target seats as well last December.

I’ll conclude by adding that in my blogpost about the Liberal tour earlier this week, I reported that it seemed to be the case that Bryan Ransom was the Liberal candidate in Durham, ON riding.  Apparently that’s not the case at all.

So, I count about 16 holes in the Liberal Party’s Ontario slate then, either where candidates stepped down, or where they face strong Conservatives or NDPers.

Later today, we’ll finish up with the West.

Tags: 41st General Election Nominations, Liberals