By Pepper Parr
May 15th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
The local Liberal Party organization may not have gotten the memo yet but the people at head office have said (not announced yet) that the party will soon open nominations for candidates in ridings across Ontario for the 2026 election.
Bonnie Crombie has to hit the road again, looking for strong candidates, raising money for the next election and figuring out what went wrong during the by-elections. Her number 1 wish would be for the RCMP to make an announcement. That would take the wind out of the Doug Ford sails
The word was put out during a meeting at which Liberal Party leader Bonnie Crombie spoke about how the Liberal’s would react to the loss of two seats during the recent by-elections. The Milton seat was seen as one the Liberals could win. They didn’t.
Zee Hamid, formerly a Liberal – now the PC member for Milton is going to have to make nice with the PC Caucus once he is sworn in.
Zee Hamid, formerly a Liberal was talked into running for the Progressive Conservatives (was there a promise made) and with the support of every Tory they could find to cover the riding they surprised a lot of Liberals who thought they had the seat in the bag.
The Toronto Star reports that “Hamid’s nomination had rankled some Tories given his Liberal past, but Ford was convinced that would help the PCs in a close race. Liberal sources have also said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s slide in the polls is not helping the provincial party.”
In the meantime, Crombie said she will continue travelling the province, meeting with Liberals and local media to become better known in advance of the next provincial election campaign two years from now.
Burlington now has to begin their candidate search and hold a nomination meeting.
There is a potential candidate out there that could beat Natalie Pierre, the current MPP.
Would the local party organization live with her? They didn’t want to the last time around.
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If the provincial Liberals hope to have any chance of re-claiming this riding then they had better find themselves a candidate with a lot more substantive business and managerial experience than the last two, coupled with a track record of accomplishment. Certainly not a “pocket puppy” for special interests. Someone like Charles Sousa would be nice.
And Joe is right: as good an Opposition Leader as Marit Stiles is, her caucus is enough to scare the dead! I keep hoping the Ontario NDP will morph into something more moderate, mainstream and pragmatic as in Manitoba or Saskatchewan. Sadly it doesn’t look like this is on the horizon anytime soon.
I concur that Stiles has increased the Ontario NDP’s fortunes….for now. But she was also part of the long knives group that ousted Tom Mulcair for Jagmeet Singh and look at what happened. So once Bonnie gets her sea legs Stiles and her out of touch MPP caucus will be greatly diminished.
Rumour has it that MMW believes that she can beat Natalie Pierre and has been in conversation with the local Liberal Association. Perhaps she can (given voter apathy here and convenient memory loss) but the Liberals need to do a much better job of vetting their candidates – the last time was a disaster. They need to talk to the right people and know the community far better than they have demonstrated previously. Should MMW be selected, run and win it would not be a complete boondoggle. Arguably, she can do much less damage as a backbencher or opposition member than she has as Mayor. And the lame duck, totally passive representation of Pierre would be at an end. Overall, a win for Burlington.
Here is the deal, whoever gets the nod will be our next representative if they have staying power. Here is why. Governments tend to have an 8 to 12 year shelf life. The current government has been at the helm since 2018 and will be tested in 2026. So the candidate has to hang in there for 4 to 8 years. My guess is the province will have had enough and will be ready for a change in 2026, especially if we have a Conservative government in Ottawa as we tend to want the opposite here in Ontario. On top of that the NDP continue to shoot themselves in the foot federally and provincially.