Ontario Liberal Party Dismisses Erskine-Smith’s Appeal of Nomination Loss

The Ontario Liberal Party has dismissed the appeal of MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith concerning his nomination contest loss earlier this month.

Erskine-Smith had been seeking the provincial Liberals’ nomination in the upcoming Scarborough Southwest byelection as a possible launchpad for a party leadership bid, but lost the contest to businessman Ahsanul Hafiz on May 9. The Toronto-area MP told reporters later that day that he had been defeated by a narrow margin of 19 votes.

He appealed to the party’s arbitration panel on May 12, alleging irregularities in the vote, including claims that 34 more ballots were counted than the number of recorded voters and that some people who could not provide their address or said they lost their driver’s licence were allowed to vote.

The arbitration panel published its findings on May 24, saying it had “carefully” reviewed the evidence and concluded that Erskine-Smith’s allegations could not be substantiated.

“He has not established that any individual who was not entitled to vote voted at the nomination meeting. Nor does the evidence call into question the integrity of the nomination process,” the three-member panel wrote. “We are satisfied that the party’s rules were followed and that Ahsanul Hafiz was the true winner of the vote.”

Erskine-Smith currently represents the neighbouring riding of Beaches-East York federally but had plans to resign his seat to run in Scarborough Southwest as a precursor to a potential leadership campaign for the party. After losing the nomination, he said such plans are now “much less likely.”

During the nomination contest, several candidates had accused Erskine-Smith of trying to use the riding as a platform for the party’s leadership. Hafiz and fellow candidate Qadira Jackson agreed to put each other second on the nomination race’s ranked ballots.

Jackson, who was the Liberal candidate for the riding in the 2025 provincial election, said that if she wasn’t going to win, she at least wanted a “local” candidate and didn’t want her riding to be “used as a tool.”

Erskine-Smith argued that Hafiz has spent most of his career in London, Ont., where he owned Domino’s Pizza stores. Hafiz now has a home in Scarborough, where he landed when he first arrived in Canada nearly 25 years ago.

Since the loss, the longtime politician has also alleged the party’s “establishment” worked to prevent him from winning the nomination.

“They were all out for our opponents, and they were working very hard to prevent us from being successful,” he said.

The party’s arbitration panel said it found no evidence to support his claim of bias and said Erskine-Smith and his team failed to express any concern until after the voting results were announced.

“They had opportunities throughout the day to dispute the propriety of conduct in the voting room. The returning officer’s evidence is that they never did this. We accept that evidence,” the panel wrote. “We conclude that Mr. Erskine-Smith’s scrutineers did not take issue with the comings and goings of the nomination meeting while it was underway, and did not decide to complain about it until after the meeting had ended and the outcome was known.”

The panel concluded the 34-ballot discrepancy identified by Erskine-Smith resulted from a record-keeping error in which some voters’ names were not crossed off the list, rather than evidence of improper voting.

The committee said 1,523 were counted and 1,489 names were crossed off the voters list, which accounts for a difference of 34.

Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser said in a statement that the party was committed to an “open and transparent process.”

“Now that the arbitration committee dismissed this appeal, our focus is the voters of Scarborough Southwest,” he said in a May 24 press release. “They have an important decision ahead, and we will work hard to earn their trust.”

The byelection, which must be called this summer, is intended to fill the vacancy left by Doly Begum, who stepped down earlier this year as the NDP member of provincial parliament for Scarborough Southwest to successfully pursue a federal candidacy for the Liberals in that riding.

Future Plans

Erskine-Smith has said he still plans to resign his federal seat before the House of Commons rises for the summer, despite his loss. It is a move he delayed earlier to support the federal party through a fragile minority period, he said, but he has not said what he plans to do after stepping down.

The Beaches-East York MP, first elected in 2015, has voiced discontent with some of the decisions made by Prime Minister Mark Carney since the 2025 spring election.

Erskine-Smith was one of the 10 ministers Carney dropped from cabinet last May and Erskine-Smith said at the time it was “impossible not to feel disrespected” by the prime minister’s choice.

He announced in January 2024 that he would not seek re-election in the 2025 vote, but changed his mind in December of that year when he was appointed housing minister by then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Erskine-Smith publicly voiced his disappointment last year over not retaining his housing portfolio as well as being excluded from cabinet altogether. He also spoke out after the Liberal government released its budget last fall. He posted a video last November labelled, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and spent much of the clip listing what he called the “bad” and the “ugly” aspects of the budget.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.