Ahsanul Hafiz wins Liberal nomination to run in Scarborough Southwest byelection

Supporters of the winning candidate, Ahsanul Hafiz, a Domino’s Pizza franchisee, jumped to their feet in the auditorium of Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute. 

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Hafiz said to the crowd.

“The game has just started … now we have to play the final,” he said, using a hockey analogy to describe the byelection to come.   

Just over 1,400 members of the Liberal riding association voted at the high school, where there was a line to cast ballots until the polls closed at 4 p.m. Almost 3,600 members were eligible to vote.

That made it a battle of turnout. 

Erskine-Smith, the 11-year MP for neighbouring Beaches—East York, used a campaign pitch that he was a proven winner with a better chance in the byelection and the leadership contest. 

After the results, he thanked supporters with a smile but his team in the hallway had glum looks on their faces 

Erskine-Smith faced repeated accusations from three competitors in the hard-fought nomination race that he was using the Scarborough Southwest riding as a “stepping stone” for his political ambitions.

Hafiz and lawyer Qadira Jackson formed a mutual support pact this week in an effort to block him from winning the nomination.

Hafiz asked his supporters to rank Jackson second on their ballots and vice-versa.

The nomination race was watched closely by other leadership aspirants aware that an Erskine-Smith loss could doom his hopes.

He had pledged to resign from Parliament when a byelection is called in the ethnically diverse riding that includes the Scarborough Bluffs and scores of apartment towers north of Kingston Road.

Premier Doug Ford is expected to set a date this summer to replace popular former New Democrat MPP Doly Begum, who held Scarborough Southwest for eight years before unexpectedly quitting in February.

The dramatic move stunned the NDP and suddenly opened a door for Erskine-Smith in a Nov. 21 Liberal leadership race where holding a seat in the legislature would be an advantage.    

Begum defected to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s federal Liberals and won an April 13 byelection called when veteran MP and cabinet minister Bill Blair resigned to become Canada’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom.

Erskine-Smith’s rivals, including immigration consultant Mahmuda Nasrin, repeatedly raised concerns he does not live in Scarborough Southwest, adding to tensions in the race.

There was pushback when he suggested to Hafiz and Jackson that they drop out and join his team on the way to seeking the party leadership and taking on Ford in the next provincial election expected in 2029 or 2030.

“Not going to happen,” Jackson vowed at the time.

Erskine-Smith made no apologies for his outreach: “I’m not shy about my desire to make change all across the province,” he told the Star in late March.

The other candidate was Mahmuda Nasrin, an immigration consultant and an elected director of the federal Liberal riding association.

Erskine-Smith has not yet officially registered for the Liberal leadership race. He finished second to Bonnie Crombie in 2023. She resigned in January. A new leader will be chosen Nov. 21. 

The Liberals have not had a full-time leader in the legislature since Ford’s 2018 defeat of premier Kathleen Wynne.

Crombie and her predecessor, current Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca, failed to win seats in the 2025 and 2022 provincial elections, respectively. 

That has made it difficult for the party, now in third place at Queen’s Park behind the official opposition NDP, to hold Ford’s Progressive Conservatives to account.

To date, MPP Lee Fairclough (Etobicoke Lakeshore) and policy adviser Dylan Marando are the only officially registered candidates in the leadership race.

Former federal cabinet minister Navdeep Bains, who resigned as a top executive at Rogers Communications, and MPP Rob Cerjanec (Ajax) are contemplating bids.