Young Liberals flock to Del Duca
Ontario party’s youth wing throws support behind front-runner
As the Ontario Liberal leadership revs up, most of the party’s youth wing is throwing its support behind front-runner Steven Del Duca.
All nine members of the Ontario Young Liberals’ management board are endorsing Del Duca and they are among the 12 of 17 on the youth executive backing the front-runner.
“Steven has spent a lot of time with the youth wing — he’s the former caucus liaison to the youth wing — and they’ve seen he’s a hard worker who’s willing to listen and engage,” Ontario Young Liberal president Ian Hall said in an interview Monday from North Bay.
“His policy commitments in terms of climate change and the economic dignity charter are in line with youth priorities,” Hall said. “And past that he’s also pledged to include 30 candidates under the age of 30 for … the next election (in 2022).”
That would guarantee slots for young Liberal candidates in about a quarter of Ontario’s 124 ridings.
“With that he is saying he wants youth at the decisionmaking table,” said Hall, noting all nine Ontario Young Liberal management board members are automatic delegates to the leadership convention set for March 7 in Mississauga.
Del Duca, a former minister who lost Vaughan-Woodbridge to Progressive Conservative Michael Tibollo in last year’s election, is in a contest with four other hopefuls. MPP Michael Coteau (Don Valley East), who was also a minister in former premier Kathleen Wynne’s cabinet, was endorsed Monday by Carol Mitchell, an agriculture minister under former premier Dalton McGuinty.
“I’m honoured to have the support of … one of our party’s strongest and most experienced advocates for rural Ontario,” Coteau said in a statement.
“As a party, we need to work to reach out and build a new generation of support in our small towns. My approach is to do this by championing the core public services all our communities need.”
MPP Mitzie Hunter (Scar-borough Guildwood), a former minister in the Wynne government, is also in the Liberal contest, along with defeated 2018 candidates Alvin Tedjo, who finished second in Oakville-Burlington North, and Kate Graham, who was third in London North Centre.
Sources tell the Star several other would-be leadership hopefuls are pondering bids. The deadline for entering the Liberal leadership race is 5 p.m. on Nov. 25.
Candidates must also pay a fee of $100,000 to run.
Meanwhile, the Liberals on Saturday nominated Lucille Collard to be their candidate in a byelection expected this winter to replace retired Grit MPP Nathalie Des Rosiers.
Collard, a long-time activist in one of the safest Liberal ridings in the province, is chair of the French-language public school board in Ottawa.
Premier Doug Ford has until Feb. 2 to call a byelection in Ottawa-Vanier.
The Liberals, who governed Ontario for nearly15 years from 2003, were decimated by Ford’s Conservatives in the June 7, 2018 election.
They currently have just six seats in the legislature. There are 73 Tories, including Speaker Ted Arnott, who does not caucus with the government, 40 New Democrats, three independent former Conservatives and one Green.