{"id":692286,"date":"2026-05-25T08:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T08:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/692286\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T08:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T08:45:12","slug":"ontario-liberal-panel-rejects-erskine-smiths-appeal-of-nomination-vote-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/692286\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario Liberal panel rejects Erskine-Smith\u2019s appeal of nomination vote \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 The Ontario Liberals have rejected an appeal by MP Nate Erskine-Smith of a nomination contest loss earlier this month that\u2019s put his bid for leadership of the provincial party into question.<\/p>\n

Erskine-Smith was vying to represent the provincial Liberals in the upcoming Scarborough Southwest byelection but did not win the party\u2019s nomination, with members instead selecting Ahsanul Hafiz.<\/p>\n

Erskine-Smith appealed to the party\u2019s arbitration panel, alleging irregularities that included 34 more ballots counted than the number of recorded voters, as well as people who couldn\u2019t state their address or claimed to have \u201cjust lost\u201d their driver\u2019s licence.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Liberal
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLiberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith arrives for a meeting of the Liberal caucus, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Sunday, May 25, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Justin Tang<\/p>\n

The arbitration\u2019s panel\u2019s decision, released late Sunday, found that Hafiz is the \u201ctrue winner\u201d of the nomination vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have carefully considered all of the evidence,\u201d the panel wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does not substantiate Mr. Erskine-Smith\u2019s 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erskine-Smith had said he wanted to run in Scarborough Southwest ahead of an intended bid for the party\u2019s leadership, but now says that is \u201cmuch less likely\u201d after he failed to secure the nomination.<\/p>\n

He currently represents the neighbouring riding of Beaches-East York federally \u2014 though he plans to soon resign his seat \u2014 and some of his fellow nomination candidates bristled at what they saw as a candidate trying to use their community as a springboard for the leadership.<\/p>\n

After Erskine-Smith\u2019s nomination loss, in addition to alleging voting irregularities he suggested the party\u2019s \u201cestablishment\u201d worked to prevent him from winning.<\/p>\n

The party\u2019s arbitration panel found no evidence to support his allegation of bias, and noted that as with many of his allegations of irregularities, Erskine-Smith and his team did not raise concerns until after the results of the vote were announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe conclude that Mr. Erskine-Smith\u2019s scrutineers did not take issue with the comings and goings of the nomination meeting while it was underway, and did not decide to complain about it until after the meeting had ended and the outcome was known,\u201d the panel wrote.<\/p>\n

The discrepancy of 34 ballots that Erskine-Smith raised was not evidence of voting irregularities, but was instead an error in record keeping, due to failures to cross voters\u2019 names off the list, the panel concluded.<\/p>\n

Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser said the party was committed to an open and transparent process.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that the arbitration committee dismissed this appeal, our focus is the voters of Scarborough Southwest,\u201d he wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have an important decision ahead, and we will work hard to earn their trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

That byelection, which has to be called by the summer, is to replace Doly Begum, who resigned earlier this year as the NDP member of provincial parliament for Scarborough Southwest in order to successfully run to represent the Liberals federally in that riding.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 24, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2013 The Ontario Liberals have rejected an appeal by MP Nate Erskine-Smith of a nomination contest loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-692286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692286","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=692286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}