Before we get to the stunning nuts and bolts of what transpired at a Scarborough high school on Saturday afternoon, let’s pause to remember an important fact: no matter how you feel about Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, and he seems to inspire some pretty big feelings, losing a nomination race by 19 votes must be agonizing.
So, seeing Erskine-Smith, after it was announced that he had lost to Ahsanul Hafiz, try to keep a smile on his face as he consoled his supporters, some of whom were in tears, took guts. We should acknowledge that.
I’ll admit it’s unusual to focus first on the loser of a vote, but this was no usual race. Erskine-Smith pulled one of the riskiest moves in Ontario politics in some time. Despite holding a House of Commons seat he was at no risk of losing, the MP for Beaches—East York saw an opportunity to bring the Ontario Liberals back to a more competitive place at Queen’s Park. He went for it.
His problem was that the Liberals already hold his riding provincially (the MPP is Mary-Margaret McMahon), meaning if Erskine-Smith wanted to take a run at Queen’s Park, he’d have to find another place to plant his flag. When the Ontario NDP’s deputy leader Doly Begum bolted for federal politics (switching to the Liberals), her Scarborough Southwest seat opened up. Erskine-Smith figured this was his moment to leap at a riding that was right next door.
Erskine-Smith consoles a supporter after falling just short. (Steve Paikin)
But almost from the get-go, Erskine-Smith’s candidacy seemed to polarize Liberals. First, there were allegations by his opponents that he was too aggressive in trying to get them to drop out of the race.
Then, there was a dust-up between Erskine-Smith’s campaign and his chief opponent, Hafiz, who owns roughly 30 Domino’s Pizza restaurants. It’s not clear what was said, or by whom, as the candidates aren’t talking. But a lawyer for Hafiz confronted Erskine-Smith early in the day Saturday and threatened that, if he didn’t tone down the rhetoric, there would be legal consequences.
Ahsanul Hafiz gives his victory speech after a 19-vote win on the third ballot. (Steve Paikin)
For those who haven't followed the race too carefully, Hafiz's victory might seem to have come out of nowhere. The fact is, he's been involved in Liberal politics in Scarborough for several years and had hoped to become the party's candidate for the recent federal byelection. But when Prime Minister Mark Carney tapped Doly Begum to be the party's standard-bearer, Hafiz put aside his initial disappointment and sought the provincial nomination in the same riding. He had wanted to become the first ever Bangladeshi-born MP in Canadian history. Begum took that prize instead, and now Hafiz will have a chance to become the second Bangladeshi-born MPP.
Qadira Jackson reportedly urged her supporters to vote for Ahsanul Hafiz on the second and third ballot. (Steve Paikin)
Hafiz parlayed his prominence in the Bengali community to his third ballot victory by a narrow 718 to 699 vote count. He handed out sample ballots in Bengali to his supporters, explaining the ranked-ballot system the party was using. He is also reported to have had an agreement with fellow candidate Qadira Jackson, whereby they would encourage their supporters to list the other as their second choice.
Interim leader John Fraser hopes Liberals will come together in hopes of winning the byelection, still to be called. (Steve Paikin)
So, with the party decidedly split heading into the vote on Saturday, interim Liberal leader John Fraser showed up in hopes of spreading some kumbaya. “These nominations, they’re like an internal family thing and there’s a lot of rub,” he said. “But on Monday, we have to come together, everybody out there knocking on doors,” for the pending byelection, which still hasn’t been called.
But the party doesn’t seem all that close to coming together.
The day before the vote, Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared in a video with Erskine-Smith, congratulating him on his move to the provincial scene. It’s highly unusual for a sitting prime minister to get involved in a contested provincial nomination, but Carney did, after (I’m told) considerable negotiations between his office and Erskine-Smith’s team. The resulting video was an awkward moment between two men who are not known to have a great relationship (Carney dumped Erskine-Smith from cabinet after winning last year’s federal election, prompting the former housing minister to say he felt “disrespected” by the demotion).
About 1500 Liberal members showed up to vote in the Scarborough Southwest nomination. (Steve Paikin)
Alas, for Erskine-Smith, his big risk, big campaign, and big endorsement all came up short.
The day-long vote at Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute featured both high drama and strange decisions. Organizers encouraged people to line up to vote half an hour before the polls opened, which meant that when the four candidates gave their speeches, stumping for support, they did so to a near-empty gymnasium.
Organizers allowed members to line up to vote at the same time the candidates were giving speeches, which left the gymnasium virtually empty and the speeches not heard. (Steve Paikin)
Erskine-Smith gave an engaging, ad-libbed speech which might have been persuasive to voters. But virtually no one heard it, or any of the other speeches for that matter. To this observer, allowing people to line up before the vote, rather than encouraging them to go to the gym to hear the candidates speak, was disrespectful to all four candidates. In such a close contest, depriving those candidates of the opportunity to make a last-minute pitch to supporters of the other candidates was a mistake.
Of course, nearly everyone who showed up to vote had their first choice already well established. But second and third ballot choices in this ranked ballot contest could have been crucial. And yet, neither of the top two contenders had a chance to persuade voters directly.
But sometimes, Erskine-Smith is the author of his own problems. Before the final vote was announced, he walked into the media room to shoot the breeze with reporters, who gave him a nice welcome. There was some relaxed banter back and forth. Then, the Globe and Mail’s Laura Stone cleverly asked, “Will you speak to us after the vote regardless of outcome?” (Erskine-Smith’s press secretary had already told me the candidate would only do a post-vote scrum if he won). In front of a roomful of reporters, Erskine-Smith agreed to a scrum, regardless of outcome.
After the vote was announced, Erskine-Smith spent a good 20-30 minutes putting on a brave face and consoling supporters. It was a touching reminder that, for a lot of people, this isn’t just a numbers game. After months of efforts, hearts soar and are broken in an instant, and Erskine-Smith’s supporters no doubt appreciated their candidate’s efforts to ease the pain.
Suddenly, the candidate’s campaign team surrounded Erskine-Smith and began to bolt for the exit. Reporters ran after him, creating the ridiculous scene whereby everybody left a nearly-empty school to race-walk outside in the pouring rain. Eventually, Erskine-Smith stopped to hold a scrum, then made some troubling allegations.
Erskine-Smith scrummed by reporters in the rain, alleging irregularities with the nomination vote. (Steve Paikin)
“I really have to talk to my team in detail,” he began, “But I’ve talked to a few scrutineers already who said they’ve never seen anything like it, and it’s unreal what happened in there, so I need to do a full debrief with the team.”
Erskine-Smith said many voters had identification issues. “They lost their driver’s licence, they just moved into the area, I don’t know." (Hafiz's lawyer, Jason Cherniak, said on X that supporters of both candidates were turned away.)
Liberal party rules allow non-citizens to vote in nominating meetings. Voters considered underage for general elections can also vote, even if they’re as young as 14. But they need to show an Ontario identification card proving their age and that they live in the riding.
Ahsanul Hafiz had strong ties to the Bengali community, which helped him win the day. (Steve Paikin)
Erskine-Smith suggested that the process was run by a group of long-time Liberals, all of whom, he said, opposed his candidacy. “Obviously given everything we saw in the race today and some frustrations along the way…I have to wait and see before I decide whether the process was fair,” Erskine-Smith added, before being pulled into a vehicle and driven away.
(I reached out to both the Ontario Liberal party and Erskine-Smith on Monday but did not hear back by publication time. According to the Canadian Press, interim leader Fraser said Monday “that the process was fair, and that if someone is saying otherwise, they should ‘prove it.’)
Earlier in the day during a private conversation, Erskine-Smith told me a nomination loss wouldn’t necessarily end his bid for the provincial leadership, especially a close one. So, while we can’t make too many definitive statements after this race, we can probably say this much: a 19-vote defeat in a race with questions about eligible voters means we haven’t heard the last of Nathaniel Erskine-Smith.
In the meantime, Hafiz moves forward as the Liberal candidate in the eventual byelection. Winning the nomination was hard enough. Now he’ll have to win a seat at Queen’s Park — and the support of hundreds of dedicated Liberals who are no doubt disappointed to see him on the ballot.
UPDATE: Erskine-Smith will appeal the result of the nomination race, according to the Toronto Star.