Ontario Liberals confirm Hafiz as party’s candidate for Scarborough Southwest provincial byelection

By MATTHEW STEPHENS

The Ontario Liberal Party has confirmed the victory of Ahsanul Hafiz as the candidate for the upcoming provincial byelection in Scarborough Southwest.

The party confirmed Hafiz’s victory in a news release on Sunday, May 24, following an arbitration hearing last week to determine the validity of competitor Nathaniel Erskine-Smith’s appeal of the results from a contentious candidate nomination meeting held earlier this month.

“From the outset, the party committed to an open and transparent nomination process – and that commitment did not waver when a challenge was filed,” said the Ontario Liberals in Sunday’s statement.

“It is precisely because we believe in due process that we made no public statements over the past week.”

In the statement, Ontario Liberal Party Interim Leader John Fraser said the party’s focus will now shift to securing another seat at Queen’s Park with the Scarborough Southwest riding.

“With the process now complete, our full attention turns to Scarborough Southwest. As this party has done time and again over the last 160 years, we will unite behind our candidate and work together to win this seat,” said Fraser.

Erskine-Smith, who currently serves as MP for Beaches-East York, had run for the provincial nomination in Scarborough Southwest and launched an appeal of the May 9 meeting’s results that saw Ashanul Hafiz win the nomination by 19 votes (718 to 699) over Erskine-Smith.

The arbitration hearing on the appeal, chaired by former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister David Zimmer and two other arbitrators not associated with the Scarborough Southwest nomination meeting, was held on May 20, which ruled in favour of Hafiz’s victory.

“We thank Chair David Zimmer and the members of the panel for the speed and rigour of their review,” said the Ontario Liberal Party in its May 24 statement. “The arbitration committee operates independently under the Ontario Liberal Party Constitution and was established well in advance of this appeal – and Chair Zimmer’s distinguished record in Ontario public life is a reflection of the integrity this process deserved.”

In a media scrum immediately after the May 9 nomination meeting at Birchmount Park Collegiate, Erskine-Smith claimed there were a number of irregularities in the process.

“While it’s tough to lose a close one, it’s even more taxing on me to keep fighting. And I thought long and hard about letting it go because that would just be easier (for any future politics, for my own personal life, for my sanity, etc.),” said Erskine-Smith in his newsletter on May 12 explaining why he was appealing the results of the nomination meeting.

“But doing politics differently is why I left law in the first place, and honesty and integrity matter more than whatever might be easier for me personally. So we have appealed.”

Among many allegations regarding the party’s voting process, Erskine-Smith’s central concern noted that 34 unexplained ballots were counted in the final result.

In a video posted on his YouTube page, Andreas Katsouris, Erskine-Smith’s Chief Scrutineer with “25 years of experience working with political campaigns,” alleged there were voters providing inappropriate identification, taking pictures of their ballots, and “telling voters explicitly what they should do.”

In the last hours of the voting process, Katsouris said the Ontario Liberal Party “lost control of the voting process nearly entirely,” and that “little scrutiny” was enforced.

An analysis of the allegations known as the “notice of appeal validity” obtained by Queen’s Park Briefing pushed back against Erskine-Smith’s claims, noting that Hafiz defeated Erskine-Smith in a “free, fair, and competitive contest.”

“The central claim – that 34 unexplained ballots existed – is demonstrably wrong on two levels,” reads an excerpt from the document. “First, the figure of 34 itself is a double-count: it adds together the balance row total (23) and the unresolved credentials forms (11), when the 11 are already included within the 23. Second, the correct comparison – votes counted (1,501) versus names crossed off the voters list (1,489) – produces a clerical gap of just 12. Twelve is less than the margin victory of 19.”

After serving a decade in federal politics, Erskine-Smith said he now plans to focus on supporting his family and reflecting on his next steps. He said he will be stepping down from his federal seat after the House of Parliament rises on June 19 for its summer break.

“I’ll close out more than a decade of federal service, coach my son’s baseball team, support my wife in the final months of her PhD, and take time to reflect on any next steps with our amazing team,” he said in the May 12 newsletter.

Erskine-Smith’s stepping down from his MP position will also create the need for a federal byelection to be called in Beaches-East York sometime in the future.

The provincial byelection for Scarborough Southwest must take place by Sept. 3, according to Elections Ontario.