Local Tories set October dates for nomination
Progressive Conservatives in the Niagara Falls riding may know by mid-to-late October who their candidate will be in next June’s provincial election.
Bart Maves, long-time party faithful and past president of the riding association, said Oct. 17 and Oct. 24 have been selected as dates the party could choose a candidate.
“We actually have to submit those dates to the party, and the party looks at their schedule because they come down and supervise all the nominations,” he said.
“They have to get back to us and say, ‘OK, we think your riding association is in good enough shape financially, we think you’ve done proper searches, we think you have an interesting enough list of candidates … you can have it on,’ and they pick one of the dates. They could also call us back and say, ‘no, you know what, we already have too many nominations occurring in that sevenday period …’ (and pick another date).”
So far, Niagara Falls Coun. Mike Strange has been the only person to publicly declared he is running for the nomination.
Strange said he has heard someone from Niagara-on-the-Lake council, and a couple business people from Fort Erie, are also considering a run.
“I actually would rather have someone to go against,” said Strange, who has been a politician for three years and made a name for himself through his Olympic boxing career, and more recently his charitable efforts.
“It kind of makes you feel comfortable talking about different topics. I’m not looking to get acclaimed or anything like that.”
Maves said at least eight people “have requested the package” seeking the riding’s nomination.
“Now, that’s all I can tell you, and the reason why is, if someone is going to run, or is strongly considering running, there’s personal issues that are involved, there’s professional issues with their work. We kind of have a policy where we don’t announce who’s taking the package, we don’t announce who’s running. We let people, if they want to do that on their own, in their own good time.”
He said local associations “don’t run their own show anymore.”
While they conduct candidate searches, those interested in being a candidate have to request a questionnaire and send that in to the Ontario PC party “because you’re running under their banner.”
“A lot of the rules governing nominations now are set at the Toronto level.”
Maves said as part of the committee responsible for the candidate search, he talked to about 60 or 70 people, and interviewed about 30.
“I just go and I talk to them, listen to them about their interest, explain the process to get the nomination, explain what it’s like to be an MPP (Maves served as Niagara Falls PC MPP between 1995 and 2003), and explain what it’s like to be a candidate, and costs,” he said.
“After I’ve talked to all these people, you get a handful who will ask for the questionnaire/ application, which is a 30-page document that asks for a bunch of information about them, and they submit that to the PC party of Ontario.”
Maves said the party conducts background checks on potential candidates, interviews them, and “green lights someone as a candidate.”
“I’ve done these candidate searches before — federally and provincially — and a lot of times people are like, ‘oh, no, no, I have no interest, thank you very much, it’s flattering that you would ask’ kind of thing. This time around there’s a lot of people who I kind of expected that response from, but were very interested. I always encourage everyone, talk to your family, talk to your friends, and so on and so forth, and think it through, so a lot of them did.”
The riding association held its annual general meeting Aug. 3, where members received a financial update, and a new board was elected.
Murna Dalton has taken over from Maves as association president, while Maves will continue on as past president.
“There’s turnover where people move between positions,” said Maves.
“Murna goes way back with the party. When I got elected in ’95, she was on the PC Ontario executive, and she was a big volunteer for the party. I’ve known her a long time. She’s a great person to have on the board.”
Meanwhile, the Niagara Falls provincial Liberal riding association does not yet have a date set to select who its candidate will be in next year’s election.
“We are working with various people, and talking with various people, but nothing concrete yet,” said riding president Karen Gansel.
“I’d say at least another month (before a nomination date is set).”
Niagara Falls incumbent NDP MPP Wayne Gates received unanimous approval from members and supporters at a nomination meeting in July to be the riding’s candidate for next year’s election.
Gates ran unopposed at the July 18 meeting.
Gates, a former Niagara Falls city councillor, won a byelection in 2014, and then retained his seat during a general election in June of that year. rspiteri@postmedia.com