MPP says she's catching up on fundraising after late entry into Liberal leadership race

“A big focus for me and the team has been on fundraising,” she told the Star in an interview Tuesday from Ottawa, where she was among candidates attending the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference.

“I needed to know that if I got in this race, I could stay in it.”

With travel, meals, accommodation and other costs to cover, the leadership race is about money as well as policy ideas. Candidates are required to make $25,000 payments at the end of this month, September and October. Failure to pay results in disqualification. 

Bowman, who was first elected as MPP in 2022, pulled her leadership campaign together just in time for the July 31 entry deadline after Ajax MPP Rob Cerjanec dropped out earlier in the month. She had been co-chair of his bid. 

According to the latest publicly available Elections Ontario filings, former federal industry minister Navdeep Bains is the fundraising leader, followed by MPP Lee Fairclough (Etobicoke-Lakeshore), a former hospital chief executive.

Also in the race are financial technology engineer and housing advocate Eric Lombardi and Dylan Marando, most recently an executive with a health-care company and previously a policy adviser to Justin Trudeau, Kathleen Wynne and Dalton McGuinty during their years in government. Neither has held elected office. 

Bowman and Fairclough have been emphasizing the need for the next leader to have a seat in the legislature. The previous two — Steven Del Duca and Bonnie Crombie — did not have one, which some in the party believe made it harder to break through.

The Liberals sit in third place behind Premier Doug Ford’s third-term Progressive Conservatives and the Official Opposition New Democrats of Marit Stiles.

“Being able to hear the issues first-hand and be a participant in the debates, not just an observer, I think is very important,” Bowman said, taking aim at Bains, Lombardi and Marando.

“We had a provincial election last year. None of them stepped forward to say, ‘I want to be a candidate to be an MPP,’ ” she added, noting she hopes they run in the next election, which is expected in 2029. 

“It feels to me like you’re kind of jumping a few rungs on the ladder, so to speak, when you don’t have a seat.”

Bowman has yet to publish a detailed policy platform but said it will include small-business tax cuts and a youth career fund she proposed in private member’s bills in efforts to boost the economy and ease a jobs shortage that has left almost one in five Ontarians aged 15 to 24 without work.

Regarding Ford government spending, Bowman said “every file is on fire.” 

That includes using costly private nursing agencies to staff hospitals, expenses of Tory cabinet ministers and MPPs — which led to Stan Cho’s resignation as tourism minister a month ago — the premier’s purchase and quick sale of a $28.9-million private jet dubbed the “gravy plane,” and concerns about the $2.5-billion Skills Development Fund, for which Labour Minister David Piccini is under investigation by the integrity commissioner.

“They have mis-prioritized the spending of taxpayer dollars,” Bowman charged.