Navdeep Bains enters Ontario Liberal leadership race as Nate Erskine-Smith loses appeal

Leadership hopefuls Lee Fairclough, MPP for Etobicoke—Lakeshore, and policy adviser Dylan Marando have already enlisted.

Bains, a former industry and science minister in prime minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, launched a “coming soon” website at NavdeepBains.ca moments after Elections Ontario confirmed his candidacy on Monday.

“Let’s Get To Work,” says the site.

Bains also released a 16-second teaser video of him walking into a classroom, taking a seat at a student’s desk and rolling up his sleeves.

He left Rogers Communications as chief corporate affairs officer May 8 to seek the provincial leadership and filed his paperwork with Elections Ontario over the weekend.

Elections Ontario confirmed he was the third officially registered candidate, naming Suh Kim as his chief financial officer.

Bains represented the old riding of Mississauga—Brampton South from 2004 to 2011 and, after losing his seat in the Liberals’ 2011 trouncing at the hands of prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, he helped Trudeau rebuild the party and take power in 2015, representing Mississauga—Malton and serving in cabinet until 2021.

Formally registering for the leadership is a crucial because it allows candidates to accept money from donors in a race with a $150,000 entry fee and $1 million spending limit.

Erskine-Smith ran for the leadership against Bonnie Crombie in 2023, placing a strong second on the third ballot with 46.6 per cent support versus her 53.4 per cent. Crombie quit in January after a tepid leadership review and failing to win a seat in last year’s election. 

But his loss in the bruising May 9 Scarborough nomination to Ahsanul Hafiz, owner of 30 Domino’s Pizza outlets, was a setback to his leadership aspirations — and a blow to his youthful followers.

Alleging there were “serious irregularities” in that vote, Erskine-Smith filed an appeal of the results. That challenge was dismissed Sunday night.

Because the MP for neighbouring Beaches—East York made his complaints public, the Liberal party took the unusual step of releasing an arbitration panel’s report dismissing his claims “so that members, candidates, and Ontarians can review the findings for themselves.”

The detailed 17-page decision said it was “potentially misleading” for Erskine-Smith to claim “34 more ballots were counted than there were recorded voters” and found nothing to substantiate his complaints, including potential vote-buying and questionable forms of identification used by voters. 

“Evidence does not support the inference that anyone who was not entitled to vote, voted,” wrote the panel of arbitrators headed by former cabinet minister David Zimmer, a lawyer.

Interim Liberal leader John Fraser told reporters the arbitration hearing last Wednesday night took six hours. 

Fraser dodged questions as to whether the party could refuse to approve Erskine-Smith as a leadership candidate because he broke Liberal rules by going public with his concerns about the nomination vote.

“We had a fair and open arbitration process, a decision has been rendered, the appeal has been dismissed and so I’m not going to speculate on anything else,” Fraser said.

Erskine-Smith has not yet commented on his future, but told CTV’s Power Play May 15 he would quit as an MP after the House of Commons begins its summer recess and noted it was “less likely” he would seek the provincial leadership in the wake of the nomination loss.

Premier Doug Ford is expected to call a byelection in Scarborough Southwest this summer to replace former New Democrat MPP Doly Begum, now the federal Liberal MP for the area.

Having a seat in the legislature would have given Erskine-Smith a boost in the leadership race.