Liberals have ‘talented’ hopefuls in Orléans, but still no nominee
With less than 10 weeks to go before the federal election, the Liberals have yet to name a candidate in Orléans, a riding where the process created a major headache for the party in the last campaign.
After losing the riding to the Conservatives in 2011, Ottawa lawyer David Bertschi was gunning to reclaim the Liberal nomination in Orléans for the 2015 election. In a lawsuit, he claimed to have received party approval to run for the nomination, only to have that approval withdrawn once retired general Andrew Leslie entered the nomination race. The party cited unpaid debt, according to the lawsuit, but Bertschi alleged he was turfed to make way for Leslie, who he referred to in court documents as the “Chosen One.” The lawsuit was later settled.
Fast forward to 2019, when Bertschi is running for the Conservatives in Orléans. In an interview, he said his values were “better aligned” with the federal Tories.
It’s not yet clear who his Liberal opponent will be. Despite a comfortable victory in 2015, Leslie announced May 1 that he wouldn’t run again. Although at least two potential candidates have expressed interest, as of Thursday the Liberal party had yet to open nominations for the riding.
Last month, the Liberals triggered “electoral urgency” rules giving the national campaign chair the “sole and unfettered discretion” to “alter the timelines and procedures” set out for candidate selection in party rules. Orléans is one of many empty candidate slots across the country that the party has yet to fill: 94 as of Thursday.
Considering the controversy of the 2015 Liberal nomination, the Citizen decided to dig deeper into what, if anything, this could mean in Orléans.
According to the Liberal party, not much. Communications director Braeden Caley provided two emailed statements describing electoral urgency rules as “long-standing administrative provisions … that always come into effect at this stage of the run-up to a major campaign, to help finalize the last few steps of the Liberal nominations process across Canada.”
Caley cited factors that could affect the timing of a nomination, including venue and special guest availability, the number of interested prospective candidates and notice requirements.
One statement noted the party had been approached “by a variety of talented community leaders interested in becoming the Team Trudeau candidate in Orléans,” and that “soon, the nomination process will be conducted in accordance with the Liberal Party of Canada’s national nomination rules.”
While these rules arose from consultation with Liberals at all levels of party hierarchy across the country, according to Caley, the same rules also allow “sole and unfettered discretion” to “alter the timelines and procedures” in a state of electoral urgency. So the Citizen also reached out those who had declared their intention to compete for the Liberal nomination in Orléans.
Khatera Akbari, a chartered professional accountant and president of the Orléans Federal Liberal Association, said it was understandable that the nomination in the riding had been delayed, considering that the party had an incumbent candidate until Leslie’s May announcement. As Akbari understands the situation, the electoral urgency rules are typically used to compress some timelines in the nomination process.
“Our hope is that there will be a fair and transparent nomination and I don’t have any reason to believe otherwise,” Akbari said.
A similar answer was offered by Jean Hébert, campaign manager for hopeful federal Liberal candidate and current Orléans MPP Marie-France Lalonde.
“They are a bit late in the process, but things like that can happen all the time.”
Hébert added it may even be advantageous to the eventual Liberal candidate for Orléans that their nomination occurs just before the writ drops. “This event will create, maybe, a momentum.”