St. Paul's by-election

[King of Kensington]

McGuinty is expected to call it for Sept. 17. One can argue the big race is at the Liberal nomination meeting tonight as the winner will almost certainly be the next MPP for St. Paul's.

Ontario Liberals will be gathering to choose their candidate in the race to fill the Toronto seat vacated by Michael Bryant, the former economic development minister who stepped down in May.

Premier Dalton McGuinty has yet to call a byelection for the riding, but party members will get the process rolling with a nomination meeting Wednesday.

They will pick one of three candidates: Eric Hoskins, a family doctor and the founder of War Child Canada, lawyer Charles Finlay and Judith Moses, a former senior assistant deputy minister of agriculture who has also served in several other ministries.

The New Democrats will nominate their own candidate Sept. 9, and two contenders have already presented themselves.

They are Julian Heller, a trial lawyer who ran as the NDP candidate in St. Paul's in both the 2003 and 2007 provincial elections, as well as the former leader of B.C.'s Green party, Stuart Parker.

No candidates have yet been named for the Progressive Conservatives.

The Green party is putting forth three contenders - realtor Chris Chopik, businessman Trifon Haitas and Raj Rama, a social and business entrepreneur - and will also be choosing their candidate Wednesday.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gtogII_3Iji6ad-y2rUM1nadZeDQ

ETA: The Tories are courting Sun columnist Sue-Anne Levy.

 

[King of Kensington]

Eric Hoskins won the Liberal nomination.

 

[CDL.TO]

So it's confirmed...
Sue Ann Levy is running for the Tories.

The Tories are counting on the 52-year-old Levy's appeal as Jewish in the largely Jewish riding, as a strong fiscal conservative and recently-married gay woman.

Compare this to the Wikipedia profile of Eric Hoskins, the Liberal candidate.

Eric William Hoskins, MD, MSc, DPHil, FRCPC, MSC, LLD, O.C. (born November 29, 1960 in Simcoe, Ontario) is the president of War Child Canada. He is a medical doctor who has focused his career on assisting civilians, particularly children, in war zones. He has worked with the United Nations and non-governmental organizations in some of the world's worst conflict areas including Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Burundi, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hoskins has also provided commentary to the media both in Canada and internationally on various humanitarian-related issues.

This by-election should be amusing and entertaining. I will certainly be attending the debate. I have been wondering for many years if Sue-Ann Levy is capable of anything other than poorly-written hyperbole-laced rants about city hall.

 

[ShonTron]

This will be a lot of fun. The debate should be the free entertainment of the evening.

 

[adma]

Interesting stunt nominating, but whatever her residency or her sexuality, SAL's problem is more generally a Sun problem--she represents a "Low Toryism" that'd make more sense in the East Toronto of yore, and which by now has mostly vamoosed to the white-trashier reaches of the outer GTA (Clarington, Keswick, et al)

 

[King of Kensington]

I see Sue Ann Levy getting Peter Kent '06 levels of support. Very visible, lots of media coverage etc., but well behind on election day.

Eric Hoskins seems a good fit for the riding represented by Carolyn Bennett federally.

Keep in mind that Miller easily beat Tory in St. Paul's in '03 and to draw on adma's point, that St. Paul's probably has among the lowest % of Sun readers in Toronto.

 

[JasonParis]

Interesting stunt nominating, but whatever her residency or her sexuality, SAL's problem is more generally a Sun problem--she represents a "Low Toryism" that'd make more sense in the East Toronto of yore, and which by now has mostly vamoosed to the white-trashier reaches of the outer GTA (Clarington, Keswick, et al)

Well said.

 

[adma]

Besides, a more suitable queer woman Tory for domain like St Paul's is Senator Nancy Ruth (Jackman)--even if, given recent Tory strategizing, she lacks Levy's "ethnic" attributes...

 

[King of Kensington]

Though the Jewish community in St. Paul's is very small-"l" liberal. The Liberals won in the heavily Jewish parts in the last federal election (and Kent got clobbered there in '06) and the PC's did much better than the federal Tories in Forest Hill and Cedarvale with the more Red Tory John Tory appealing to them regarding "fairness" rather than by an embrace of religion. It will be interesting how Hudak will play as a representative of a small town base that opposes human rights commissions, etc. (then again a Jewish lesbian Tory opposing HRCs also may "diversify" the cause).

 

[christiesplits]

Eric Hoskins seems a good fit for the riding represented by Carolyn Bennett federally.

Hoskins definitely has an impressive resume. Perhaps too impressive. Why would you you use your Rhodes Scholar credentials and humanitarian efforts in Africa to become a lowly, underused party hack in the stuffy backbenches of the legislature?

 

[spider]

Hoskins definitely has an impressive resume. Perhaps too impressive. Why would you you use your Rhodes Scholar credentials and humanitarian efforts in Africa to become a lowly, underused party hack in the stuffy backbenches of the legislature?

Did our tax dollars help this obviously very bright guy acquire his medical credentials only to watch him piss them away on hobbies when the citizens of Ontario need practicing physicians not more hacks in Queens Park?

 

[adma]

Hoskins definitely has an impressive resume. Perhaps too impressive. Why would you you use your Rhodes Scholar credentials and humanitarian efforts in Africa to become a lowly, underused party hack in the stuffy backbenches of the legislature?

Well, it could be worse. He ran in Haldimand Freaking Norfolk federally last year (and did surprisingly well)

 

[SimonP]

From The Star

St. Paul's byelection is on

The election in the key downtown riding of St. Paul's is now officially on.

The race to fill the seat vacated by former Liberal economic development minister Michael Bryant was announced late this afternoon by the premier's office.

Premier Dalton McGuinty told reporters in Peterborough today he was reluctant to call an election in the summer but he now feels he has given all parties sufficient time to get ready. Voting day is Sept. 17.

 

[christiesplits]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/silver-powers/over-hyping-a-by-election/article1256933/

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 09:20 AM

Over-hyping a (provincial) by-election
Robert Silver

It started off as a test of Dalton McGuinty's government. Now, we find out the by-election in St. Paul's is a test of both Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff's leadership and prospects in possible a fall federal election.

"St. Paul's vote a national battlefront?" - cries today's Toronto Star headline.

"If the Progressive Conservatives, who are fielding a scrappy Toronto Sun columnist, wrest the seat from the Liberals, it would be the first Tory win in Toronto - provincially or federally - in a decade."

This is of course true. John Tory never won a thing in Toronto (well, actually, Tory has never won anything pretty much anywhere, Toronto rejecting him is thus nothing of particular note). Stephen Harper has swung and missed in every attempt in the 416. That's a fact.

The Star goes on: "[T]hat should have Prime Minister Stephen Harper watching the contest closely, observers say." Not sure who the observers are but if Stephen Harper is spending more than 10 minutes watching a provincial by-election in St. Paul's, he has too much time on his hand.

And I have a feeling Harper knows better.

He had a star former journalist run for him in a little riding called St. Paul's back in 2006. Kent, I believe was his last name. He was supposed to take out a Liberal MP and well, pretty much everything that is now being said about this Sun columnist was said about him. Strong ties to the Jewish community. Urbane. Popular. Feisty. Whatever.

He got killed. It wasn't even close.

Other than unnamed sources (mostly Liberal, to be fair), is there any reason to think St. Paul's will be anything other than Liberal after the by-election?

Premier McGuinty is at roughly 50 per cent in the polls. He is higher in the GTA than he is elsewhere in the province. He has a strong candidate who won the nomination for the Liberals after an open, competitive nomination. The party is taking the by-election seriously and is putting resources and their best people to work to win it. The NDP is nowhere right now provincially generally and in Toronto specifically. Tim Hudak is unknown at best.

In other words, while anything could happen, I wouldn't bet a quarter that St. Paul's will be anything other than a Liberal win.

The irony of the nervous-nelly hyping about how dangerous the Conservatives should be in St. Paul's is if Hudak's hand-picked candidate falls flat; if she doesn't win or at least come close to winning, this has now become an early referendum on Tim Hudak's leadership and his prospects in urban Ontario.

You see, over-hyping by-elections can swing both ways.

 

[Jonny5]

The irony of the nervous-nelly hyping about how dangerous the Conservatives should be in St. Paul's is if Hudak's hand-picked candidate falls flat; if she doesn't win or at least come close to winning, this has now become an early referendum on Tim Hudak's leadership and his prospects in urban Ontario.

That's the most important paragraph. Hudak has thrown all of the capital he has accumulated so far behind SAL. If she gets blown away by Hoskins (likely, in my opinion), I suspect many (more) Ontario PC members will be having second-thoughts about Hudak and he'll go into next years election much weaker. Hoskins could scare off a lot of red tory support for SAL by playing the Hudak-is-a-rural-redneck card.

The only guaranteed winner from all of this will be SAL. She's the type who wants fame and attention and that's what she's going to be getting. Plus I'm sure she'll be back at The Sun if she loses.

I get the feeling the backroom machine desperately wants Hoskins in so they can start grooming him for bigger things in the future. Afterall, once you get political office in Toronto with the Liberal machine behind you, you've got a job for life. Just look at Alan Tonks!