This is the sixth in a series of opinion columns on the 2022 Ontario provincial election, written by Josh Lieblein for The CJN.
After getting crushed as the NDP challenger to Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett in Toronto’s midtown St. Paul’s riding in the 2015 federal election, Noah Richler penned a 384-page eulogy for his campaign, The Candidate.
In this book, the son of Mordecai details how the CBC slapped him with a cease-and-desist for appropriating a copyright-protected snippet of Peter Mansbridge interviewing Stephen Harper, as part of one of Noah’s viral video efforts.
Snakebitten by a campaign that was quickly going south, the party ghosted Richler—who’d been promoting himself in ways that received national attention—and left him to stumble through the last days.
But someone could’ve also told him how this lonely walk followed along a road travelled by many other candidates/casualties.
You can count on one thing when someone fails in St. Paul’s: it’s on a positively operatic scale.
Of all the ridings I’ve haunted, this is the one I know best, having participated in invariably unsuccessful electoral efforts at all three levels of government. (It also notably has a 10.9 percent Jewish population amongst 117,000 residents.) As such, I have many examples of these spectacular immolations close at hand:
- During an all-candidates debate in 2007, Ontario PC candidate Lillyann Goldstein compared the city of Toronto to a demanding child always wanting more from the province, a comment which dumbfounded onlookers and then-attorney-general Michael Bryant. (The Toronto Star called it a “watershed election moment.”)
- Two years later, Bryant was involved in a deadly altercation with a cyclist who (so the story goes) assaulted him and his wife in the car on Avenue Road. Flyers already printed for the Liberal candidate who handily replaced him in the byelection called the former MPP “a driving force.”
- Premier Kathleen Wynne’s advisers meddled in the nomination race before the 2018 election by trying to tilt the odds against eventual candidate Jess Spindler. The usual headache-inducing debate about Spindler’s lack of experience relative to the other guy did no favours for Wynne’s feminist credibility.
Perhaps you’ve picked up on the pattern. Someone decides they’re going to flip the script and/or decide rules are for the little people—and ends up a cautionary tale.
If you’ve been following my Doorstep Postings, you might be sensitive to some of the tensions that will lead to at least one candidate’s personal Valhalla: crusading anti-COVID physicians, dynastic struggles, identity politics, and voters who spit at the mere mention of Doug Ford’s name.
But even if you haven’t been reading each week, we’ve already had a few instances of these fault lines being exposed.
Reacting to news that door-to-door syringe-wielder Dr. Nathan Stall will be representing the Liberals for this campaign, NDP MPP Jill Andrew’s colleague tweeted out this privilege-check:
To her credit, Andrew herself has made an effort to represent voters in Cedarvale just as much as the ones in Little Jamaica. There’s been the occasional questionable subtweet, but who among us, right?
On his right flank, the good doctor was a target of a Rebel News campaign where a $5,000 “bounty” was offered for videos of health-care workers breaking COVID rules.
Stall not only reported this as harassment to Twitter—whose moderators didn’t agree with him—but also to Toronto Police—who didn’t appear to respond with any action that Ezra Levant could use for his famous fundraising campaigns.
Shortly afterwards, there was another incident at the Wychwood Barns farmer’s market, where Stall accused Levant’s operatives of harassment. He had to issue an apology after lawyers got involved. (This one probably ain’t over.)
And as for the PCs? Three months before the election, no candidate has been nominated (typical), but one Blake Libfeld is heavily rumoured to be Doug Ford’s man, which should earn him a lot of doors slammed in his face.
The less attention the young Mr. Libfeld attracts as he goes through the motions of reading government accomplishments out of a binder and raising lots of funds, the better. But he also carries the weight of being spawned from a famously fractious family of developers:
So, which one’s going to walk the walk of shame once the writ drops? Based on the recent political history of St. Paul’s, chances are we’ll get an entertaining answer soon.
Josh Lieblein can be reached at [email protected] for your response to Doorstep Postings.
