By Pepper Parr
February 12th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
More than 400 people took part in the Team Nate online event last night.
What is Team Nate?
Nate Erskine Smith is currently the MP for Beaches East York, a Toronto area riding.
Nathan Erskine Smith, currently the MP for Beaches East York has made it known that he wants to quit politics at the federal level and become a provincial MPP.
His first step is to get himself nominated as the candidate for the Scarborough South West provincial seat so that he can run in the by election for that seat that could take place next summer.
The date of the by election will be determined by Premier Doug Ford.
The Scarborough West by-election is necessary because Doly Begun gave up the seat as a provincial MPP and becames a federal MP and part of the Mark Carney government.
Yes, it is confusing.
But not for Nate.
He sees it all as a three-step jump.
Get nominated as the candidate for the Scarborough West seat first, then win the by election.
That makes him a provincial Liberal MPP, which is more than Bonnie Crombie was able to do when she was made leader of the Provincial Liberals.
Once this is done he is then in postion as an MPP to run for the leadership of the provincial Liberal Party and run against Doug Ford and become Premier of the province.
Nate is clear on what he thinks the province needs
He was a little thin on the changes he would make if he were to be made Premier.
He does use good language to let people know what kind of guy he is.
Nate Erskine Smith with his wife and two sons.
Married, father of two boys, he wants to bring smart, fair, and honest government to Queen’s Park.
He wants the 400 people who took part in the event last night to sign up at teamnate.ca so they can vote in this race and be part of building something better.
Joining the Ontario Liberal Party is free.
This, he explains, is how winning teams come together.
As Nate said Wednesday night, we deserve better than this tired, incompetent, and self-dealing Conservative government.
Better is possible for Ontario he said, and if you want better, the answer is participation.
Nate brings a bumpy background to his current challenge.
He announced in 2013 that he would be a candidate for Beaches East York and ran in the 2015 election that gave Canada the Justin Trudeau government.
In January of 202? Justin Trudeau resigned as Prime Minister after a caucus revolt made it clear he could not continue to govern.
When Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership, he made Nate a part of his Cabinet.
Nate Erskine Smith appearing before Burlington Liberals when he was running for the Liberal leadership the first time. Lisa Mayeski was the Burlington Provincial Party president at the time.
When Carney then ran to become the Prime Minister, he dropped Nate from Cabinet; something Nate needed time to get over.
It was clear to him that he was going nowhere with the Carney government.
In 2023, he ran for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party, but he was beaten by Bonnie Crombie and had to give a lot of thought to whether or not he had a political future.
When Crombie couldn’t get herself elected to office, she had to quit as leader.
That opened up a path for Nate that he is now trotting along at a hectic pace.
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