Ontario Liberal Party rejects Erskine-Smith nomination appeal

The Ontario Liberal Party has rejected an appeal from federal MP Nate ErskineSmith, who contested the results of a nomination meeting that he lost earlier this month, a decision that casts doubt on his planned bid for the party’s provincial leadership.

ErskineSmith had sought to represent the provincial Liberals in the upcoming Scarborough Southwest byelection but lost the nomination to Ahsanul Hafiz. He appealed to the party’s arbitration panel, alleging irregularities that included 34 more ballots counted than the number of recorded voters, as well as reports of individuals who could not state their address or claimed to have “just lost” their driver’s license.

The arbitration panel’s decision, released Sunday, found that Hafiz is the “true winner” of the nomination vote. “We have carefully considered all of the evidence,” the panel wrote. “It does not substantiate Mr. ErskineSmith’s allegations. He has not established that any individual who was not entitled to vote voted at the nomination meeting. Nor does the evidence call into question the integrity of the nomination process.”

The panel noted that ErskineSmith and his team did not raise concerns about many of the alleged...