Liberals nominate Grant Gordon

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1129106–liberals-pick-newcomer-grant-gordon-for-toronto-danforth-race?bn=1

Laura Stone Staff Reporter

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It wasn’t the high-profile nomination that many heralded it would be, but in the end, Liberal party members had to choose someone as their candidate in the Toronto-Danforth byelection on March 19.

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Welcome to politics, Grant Gordon.

The founder of Key Gordon Communications, an advertising and design firm, beat Trifon Haitas, the only other Liberal candidate, in a vote held Thursday night at Riverdale Collegiate Institute.

“I hope that I can bring to this election something new and dynamic,” said Gordon after the victor was announced. “I consider this a very great privilege.”

There were 355 votes cast out of 833 eligible voters, compared with about 500 cast at last month’s NDP nomination held in a cramped east-end church.

The party’s interim leader Bob Rae, as well newly elected Liberal Party president Mike Crawley, also attended the vote.

Gordon will now take on the NDP’s Craig Scott, a human rights activist and Osgoode Hall law professor, in the race to fill Jack Layton’s seat, empty since his death on Aug. 22.

The other candidates include Conservative Andrew Keyes and Green Party’s Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu, who also ran last year.

Viewed by party officials as a capable nominee, Gordon, a 48-year-old father of three, was nominated by Dennis Mills, the former Liberal MP who held the riding for 16 years. “We all had a high respect for Jack but I have to tell you, this is a brand new game,” said Mills, 65, who turned down the opportunity to run again.

Gordon is nevertheless a relative unknown, running for a flagging party in the midst of an overhaul after a crushing defeat last May that left them with a record low 34 seats.

While Scott is also a political neophyte, he is making his debut in a riding that Layton handily won with 60 per cent of the vote last May.

The Liberals, under former candidate Andrew Lang, clocked 18 per cent in that election, not far ahead of the Conservatives’ 14 per cent.

Some see Gordon as a stand-in for a party that couldn’t muster a big name to fill the ballot.

“They couldn’t find anybody and they were hoping for somebody to come out of the woodwork. And I’m sure they made all kinds of pitches,” said Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto. “It’s an incredibly bad omen.”

Still, Wiseman said he’s not convinced an experienced Liberal candidate could win in Layton’s former riding, considering the fact he or she would only have about a month to front a campaign.

“No one wants to put their neck on the line as a sacrificial lamb, and lose, and be humiliated,” he said.

Names floated around as potential Liberal nominees included former MPs Ken Dryden, Gerard Kennedy and Belinda Stronach, and even CTV News correspondent Seamus O’Regan.

But Judi Longfield, executive director of the Liberal Party of Canada in Ontario and a former Whitby MP, said the rumours were simply idle speculation from “people who didn’t have anything better to do.”

She said the party initially had interest from about six people, but only the two candidates officially filed their papers, primarily due to timing.

As for name recognition, Longfield assured she’s not worried.

“You look at the number of people who are sitting in the House of Commons today, and most of them were not big names when they put their names on the ballot,” she said. “We have people who are interested, who will fight a good, strong, vigorous campaign.”

For his part, Haitas, a Greek-Canadian journalist who has previously run for the Greens, amassed controversy this week due to support from pro-life group Liberals for Life. Some delegates worried the weakened Liberals were susceptible to takeovers from such single-issue groups, which are against the party’s position.

“I believe that everyone has a choice,” said Haitas, prior to the vote. “I’m a Christian, an orthodox Christian, and I’ve been brought up knowing that life is sacred.”

Gordon took a swipe at his opponent during his speech, saying he doesn’t need to be a woman to fight for women’s rights, “including the right to make their own choices about their own bodies.”

The Conservatives, who have said publicly they don’t expect to win, call the race the “Liberals’ to lose.” Prior to losing to Layton, Mills held the seat between 1988 and 2004.

Gordon’s political priorities include climate change, child care, pensions and immigration.

As for his competition, Gordon said there’s a clear difference between his party and the NDP, such as federalism and financial viability of their ideas. He also expressed concern about an NDP divide between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

He plans to sway voters by communicating the Liberal platform and “values,” such as equality and fairness.

“This coming byelection could be an excellent bellwether on what the people of this riding and what Canadians at large want.”