Ontario Liberal party dismisses Nate Erskine-Smith appeal

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Ahsanul Hafiz will continue to stand as the Ontario Liberal nominee for Scarborough Southwest after an arbitration committee dismissed an appeal of the results by a high-profile rival.

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The Ontario Liberals issued a statement late Sunday night thanking chair David Zimmer and members of the panel for the “speed and rigour of their review” of allegations brought forward by leadership hopeful Nate Erskine-Smith, who finished second to Hafiz by 19 votes during the nomination process.

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“I am grateful for the careful work of the arbitration committee and my team,” Hafiz said in a statement on social media. “Party staff ran a rigorous and fair nomination process and I thank all the volunteers for their hard work.

“I am focused on winning the support of voters in Scarborough Southwest and turning this riding red.”

An email seeking a comment from Erskine-Smith was not immediately returned.

Erskine-Smith urged to ‘prove’ allegations

Erskine-Smith, who finished second to Bonnie Crombie in the 2023 Ontario Liberal leadership race and has laid the groundwork for another run this year, filed his appeal on May 12 after casting doubts on the results of the nomination process days earlier, including that he had spoken with a “few scrutineers already who said they’ve never seen anything like it and it’s unreal what happened in there.

“I don’t know,” he told reporters after learning about the results, while raising concerns about voter ID issues. “It’s unfair for me to specifically speculate. I’ve got no idea. I’ve got to talk to the team, do a full debrief with the team as to what comes next in terms of it was obviously very close and we’ll see.”

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The Beaches—East York MP then took up interim Liberal Leader John Fraser’s invitation to “prove it.”

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The arbitration committee was tasked with determining if the meeting was called and conducted within the party’s nomination rules. The hearing also put the burden on Erskine-Smith to prove there were irregularities in how the vote was conducted and that “individuals who were ‘not entitled to vote voted’” because of these irregularities.

While the evidence and submissions were mostly kept confidential, the appeal decision posted on the Ontario Liberal website said the arbitration committee was satisfied that “none of the irregularities alleged by Mr. Erskine-Smith was an irregularity that affected the result of the election or that calls into question the integrity of the nomination process.

“The nomination rules were followed,” the decision says. “No ballots were counted that should not have been. Mr. Hafiz was the true winner of the vote and has properly been selected by the constituency association as the Ontario Liberal Party’s candidate in Scarborough Southwest.”

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‘Full attention’ now on byelection: Liberals

In announcing the decision, Fraser said that they had “committed to an open and transparent nomination process — and that commitment did not waver when a challenge was filed.

“With this process now complete, our full attention turns to Scarborough Southwest,” he said.

Premier Doug Ford has yet to announce a byelection date for Scarborough Southwest after former NDP MPP Doly Begum resigned to successfully represent the riding federally for the Liberals.

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