Pundits' Guide

UPDATE: A commenter below says that it’s been announced that Conservative candidate Ray Larkin will not be running in the by-election after all. I’m trying to reconfirm with my sources. Thanks as always to PG readers for being so fast with their feedback.

RE-UPDATED: According to the Conservative Party headquarters, regional director Marni Larkin did not announce that her father Ray Larkin would not be running in the by-election, and he is indeed their candidate in this riding.  No harm checking out the question, however.  Thanks again to everyone for their assistance.

Contrary to reports in some Winnipeg media this morning, all four major political parties have now picked their candidates for the forthcoming election in the vacant seat of Winnipeg North, MB.

Last night’s meeting in The Maples Community Centre (not the Winnipeg Convention Centre, as earlier speculated) saw a reported 1,000 of 2,300 eligible Liberal members cast ballots in a two-way contested nomination fight between Inkster MLA Kevin Lamoureux and his unsuccessful challenger, Point Douglas city councillor Mike Pagtakhan, who will now likely run for re-election in this fall’s municipal election instead.

Meanwhile, 2008 Conservative candidate controller Ray Larkin has been tapped to run once again by his party, sources tell the Pundits’ Guide.  Larkin achieved a second-place finish in the last election, obtaining a record 22.4% of the vote for his party in that riding, while the Liberals fell to third place, below the 10% threshold for receiving a rebate of paid candidate election expenses.

Undeterred, new Liberal candidate Lamoureux believes their recent growth in membership sales from 100 to 2300 (1300 reportedly signed up by his campaign) signals a resurgence for his party, claiming that “the Liberal Party needs to win Winnipeg North”.

The two join NDP candidate Kevin Chief who was acclaimed at the end of May in the hopes of replacing retiring Judy Wasylycia-Leis, who stepped down to run for Mayor.  Wasylycia-Leis had obtained her party’s second-highest vote share in the last election, and ranked in the top 5 since at least 1997.

First to be nominated on April 21 of last year was the Green Party’s John Harvie, who remains their candidate according to the Party’s official list on its website.

The Prime Minister has until October 27 to call the by-election, which given the usual 36-day writ period would put it on or before Monday, December 13, 2010.  However, in light of the competing municipal election in Winnipeg on October 27, the scheduled return of Parliament on Monday September 20, and the PM’s previous patterns, we could see a call come in the first week of August for an Election Day of either Tuesday, September 7 (after Labour Day), or Monday, September 13.

The candidate spending limit will be $76,000 or so during the campaign period, based on the 2008 riding population of 79,366.  Registered parties will be able to spend about half again as much.  Of course this doesn’t apply to any spending incurred for items prior to the election call.

Looking at the riding associations’ finances, as recently added to the Pundits’ Guide riding profiles, we see that only the Conservative Party had filed its EDA return when I last imported the data, and reported a Net Worth of $3750 (approximately 5% of the spending limit).  I notice the NDP has just filed its return with Elections Canada as well, reporting a Net Worth of $48.9K (64% of the limit), so I’ll get that return into the database as soon as possible.  Neither the Liberals’ nor Greens’ EDA return is filed in the Elections Canada database as yet.

Tags: 41st General Election Nominations, Conservatives, Greens, Liberals, NDP, Vacant Seats, Winnipeg North