{"id":461824,"date":"2026-02-08T13:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T13:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/461824\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T13:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T13:54:12","slug":"ontario-liberals-announce-date-to-select-new-leader-kicking-off-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/461824\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario Liberals announce date to select new leader, kicking off race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\tBy Staff<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Canadian Press\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tPosted February 7, 2026 5:06 pm\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t1 min read\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>The Ontario Liberal Party says it will select a new leader on Nov. 21, an announcement that kicks off its third leadership race since 2020.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Several politicians, both provincially and federally, have been weighing bids and assembling teams in the background but have been waiting for the date and rules of the upcoming leadership race before making any official announcements.<\/p>\n<p>Party president Kathryn McGarry said in a statement that the race is an opportunity for the party to build momentum and bring <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/liberals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liberals<\/a> together<\/p>\n<p>The winner of the leadership contest will replace Bonnie Crombie, who officially resigned earlier this year following lukewarm support in a vote at the party\u2019s annual general meeting in the fall.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767930311_275_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get the day&#8217;s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n<p>Crombie led the provincial Liberals back to official party status and increased their seat count in last year\u2019s snap election, but she failed to win her own seat and the party did not form the Official Opposition despite receiving nearly 600,000 more votes than the NDP.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith, who finished second to Crombie in the 2023 leadership race, has strongly suggested he will give it another go, and has said he will seek the provincial party\u2019s nomination for an upcoming byelection in the\u00a0Toronto\u00a0riding of Scarborough Southwest.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11657636\/psac-in-office-mandate\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770558852_222_ffd9000e0d2e0c78b40949c1f8f56852077ad2f8128018eea75c89f2fe127b15-e1770334262243.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Doesn\u2019t make sense\u2019: Union files labour complaint over federal 4-day in-office mandate\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11657511\/bodies-found-mexico-canadian-mine\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770558852_291_CP12726915.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tBodies found in area in Mexico where search is on for 10 missing workers from Canadian mine\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ontario Liberal caucus members Lee Fairclough, Adil Shamji and Rob Cerjanec have also said they are seriously considering jumping into the leadership race when it is called.<\/p>\n<p>Former Liberal party president Mike Crawley is said to be weighing a run, as is housing advocate Eric Lombardi.<\/p>\n<p>Ontario Liberal leader hopefuls have until July 31 at 5 p.m. to submit their nomination papers.<\/p>\n<p>Party members will cast their votes electronically between Nov. 9 and Nov. 20 using a ranked ballot system.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Politics<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Staff The Canadian Press Posted February 7, 2026 5:06 pm 1 min read Descrease article font size&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,80101,44,77581,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-461824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-liberals","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-ontario-liberals","13":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}