Amidst rumblings of an early provincial election being called, local Liberals are kicking the tires in the Sudbury and Nickel Belt electoral districts.
An anonymous tipster provided Sudbury.com with a list of names we’ve spent the past several days striving to confirm. Messages left with some potential candidates have gone unanswered.
“Everybody’s in until they’re in,” Sudbury Provincial Liberal Association president David Farrow told Sudbury.com, offering that although he has heard several names bandied about, none have submitted nomination paperwork yet.
Farrow, a retired school principal, was Sudbury’s Ontario Liberal Party candidate for the 2022 general election, and has since joined the Ontario Liberals’ national leadership team and become chair of the Rainbow District School Board.
He confirmed with Sudbury.com that he will be seeking nomination to be Sudbury’s Liberal candidate again.
It’s “anybody’s guess” when local candidates will be affirmed, he said.
The provincial Liberal leadership is nominating sitting MPPs first, and will make their way down the list until they get to areas such as Greater Sudbury, whose two sitting MPPs, Jamie West (Sudbury) and France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) are members of the NDP.
“I’m thinking that we won’t see much action until mid to late fall, that would be my guess, but I don’t make those decisions,” Farrow said. “There’s a bit of urgency to it because of the rampant speculation that the current government, the Ford government, will go early.”
Although the most popular speculation is that a provincial election will be called a year early, bringing it to 2025, Farrow said there’s also speculation that it could be this autumn.
Nickel Belt Provincial Liberal Association president Gilles Proulx said that although he’s heard rumours of candidates, he hasn’t received any nomination forms to date.
Proulx ran in the 2022 election, and said he’s 80-per-cent sure he won’t run in the next election.
Recently retired from teaching, he said he’d like to spend time with his family.
“Hopefully we do have more than one person willing to take a risk and help take out Doug Ford, but nobody’s really approached us yet,” he said, adding that he has heard the same rumblings that Farrow has, that there could be an election as early as autumn.
From the list of names provided to Sudbury.com, we’ve confirmed Farrow and Tay Butt as putting their names forward in Sudbury, and Rashid Mukhtar Chaudhry as putting his name forward in Nickel Belt.
Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbée said in email correspondence that while she hasn’t formally committed to running in Nickel Belt, she’s “definitely leaning in that direction.”
In addition to her role on city council, Labbée serves as assistant manager and program co-ordinator at ParkSide Older Adult Centre.
“It's a major life commitment, but I'm only 49 years old and I'm at a point in my life where I have the focus and longterm dedication if I choose to take that on,” she said. “I would be proud to represent the people of Nickel Belt as their next MPP.”
Labbée said she was invited to attend the Ontario Liberal Party leadership convention in Toronto last year, where Bonnie Crombie was elected as leader.
The party “has a renewed optimism under her leadership,” Labbée said, reiterating her prior support for Crombie.
“Bonnie was here in Sudbury for the FONOM conference and she was able to spend a few days here and meet with key stakeholders and Ontario Liberals to grow the support for her, for Sudbury and Nickel Belt,” Labbée said, adding that she has remained in close contact with Crombie and her team.
Butt has been involved with the Ontario Liberal Party for the past several years and previously ran in the Nickel Belt electoral district. The former Cambrian College professor currently serves as president of International Student Residence.
Espousing “Liberal values,” Butt said he’d work to ensure public services are maintained and that the north is not ignored.
“We don’t want cuts on hospitals and education, we don’t want Laurentian University to go bankrupt and we don’t want Highway 69 (four-laning) stopped for another 10 years,” he said. “We want to spend money on Infrastructure, highways and our health-care system so our aging population feels better.”
Chaudhry owns the Flame Downtown restaurant and rental properties, assists immigrants from his native Pakistan and has been involved with the federal and provincial Liberals for the past several years. He was awarded a Platinum Jubilee pin last year.
When it comes to seeking public office, he said improving the local health-care system is at the top of his list of priorities — a direction he reaffirmed recently while spending several hours waiting in the emergency room with his pregnant wife.
This is an “everyday problem,” he said of the Health Science North’s patient backlog.
Two names we were provided and were dismissed as candidates were Viviane Lapointe for Sudbury (her office noted the Liberal MP has already been reaffirmed as the federal riding’s candidate) and Yanick Proulx for Nickel Belt (the 17-year-old son of Gilles clarified that he’s seeking the vice-president north position for the party’s executive council, and not the Nickel Belt seat).
Sudbury.com’s efforts to confirm candidates vying for Ontario Liberal Party positions will continue, alongside clarifying which local candidates are seeking public office under other parties’ banners.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
