Adviser alleges Orléans Liberal nomination process was rigged

An adviser to one of the defeated Liberal nomination contestants in Orléans is alleging that the party manipulated the nomination process to favour its preferred candidate, former Orléans MPP Marie-France Lalonde.

The Liberals won the east Ottawa riding from the Conservatives in 2015 with the election of star candidate and former army commander Andrew Leslie. He announced May 1 that he wasn’t running again, and at least two hopeful nomination contestants made it known shortly after that they would campaign to become his successor: Orléans MPP Lalonde and Orléans Liberal riding association president Khatera Akbari.

But it wasn’t until Sept. 13 — days after the writ was issued and weeks after nominating candidates in other Ottawa-area ridings — that the Liberals announced a nomination meeting in Orléans for Sept. 19.

The party has not explained why it waited so long to call the nomination meeting, despite repeated questions from this newspaper.

Léo Bourdon was an adviser to Akbari’s campaign. He said Akbari helped to sign up several thousand Liberals by the late spring/early summer, and believes the party delayed calling the nomination meeting to allow Lalonde to catch up.

“I believe that this was in the fix for Marie-France Lalonde from the beginning,” Bourdon said. Lalonde’s campaign referred a request for an interview about the fairness of the nomination process to the Liberal Party.

The Orléans Liberal nomination was ultimately contested by three people: Lalonde, Akbari and lawyer Jean-Claude Dubuisson.

Bourdon alleges the unfairness continued when the party contacted the contestants less than two days before the nomination meeting. He said they were told a significant number of prospective nomination voters had registered with the wrong date of birth. He said the contestants were given 24 hours to correct this information, or those with the wrong birth dates wouldn’t be able to vote.

Bourdon said 2,000 registered Liberals on Akbari’s supporters list needed date-of-birth corrections, and they were only able to submit updated information for 600 of those in the 24-hour period the party allowed.

Akbari could not be reached for comment for this story. Her campaign team said she’s out of the country on vacation.