More news from northern Ontario and Manitoba:

• Sudbury, ON - This long-time Liberal riding in Northern Ontario, which suddenly changed hands in the last election, is certainly inspiring a lot of competition for challenger nominations. First, as reported here yesterday, the Green Party will be having a contested nomination meeting this coming Thursday June 11. Now comes word from NorthernLife.ca of a very wide field opening up for the Liberal nomination as well. We earlier reported that Vale Inco media relations official and former ministerial policy aide Gary Holman was planning a run for the nomination. Reports today indicate that Holman could be joined by up to 4 others including city councillor and social planning council executive director Janet Gasparini, lawyer Gerry Guimond who briefly ran for the Liberal nomination in neighbouring Nickel Belt riding in 2008, "[a]nother prominent Sudbury citizen ... who does not want to be named" until his papers are filed, and even former candidate Louise Portelance is not ruling out a second bid for her party's nomination. Not mentioned as running is the former 20-year Liberal M.P., Diane Marleau, who lost the seat to first-time NDP M.P. Glenn Thibeault last fall in the 5th closest three-way race of the last election. No date has been set as yet for the Liberal nomination meeting.
  
• Winnipeg South Centre, ON - The Winnipeg Free Press' Mia Rabson is reporting this morning that the race is heating up for the Conservative nomination in what she rightfully dubs the "longest-held Liberal riding in Western Canada". Nominations close on Tuesday, June 16 for a meeting that must be held within 21 days after that. Running are Neville's first-cousin, downtown developer Hart Mallin, and Raymond Hall who is an Air Canada pilot and lawyer. Rabson is also reporting that Anita Neville is among the Liberal incumbents who met the deadline for the membership and fundraising targets needed to run unopposed for her own party's nomination. With a historically weak NDP vote in 2008, the Conservatives were able to make gains on four-term M.P. Neville, with their candidate retired Blue Bomber Trevor Kennerd coming within 6% of Neville's vote, nearly matching her in election spending, and out-fundraising her by a factor of 2:1 to the point that Neville's campaign incurred a shortfall of just over $40K.
• Saint Boniface, MB - Meanwhile in the riding next door, Rabson reports that former Liberal M.P. Ray Simard will try for a come-back in a seat Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff calls "a riding the party shouldn't have lost and can win back". Simard lost to first-time Conservative M.P. Shelly Glover in another historically weak NDP showing, where the NDP vote dropped 8 percentage points, the Liberals dropped 4 points, and Glover picked up 11 of the 12, even spending slightly less than Simard to do so.

This makes Ray Simard the 16th former Liberal M.P. to express interest in running again.

In other election gossip, Jane Taber is repeating the "hot speculation" that former Deputy Finance Minister and Bank of Canada Governor might be enticed back from Queen's University to run for the Liberals and become Michael Ignatieff's Finance Minister. No prospective seat for Mr. Dodge was mentioned in the story, but should any actual riding name surface, I'll be sure to report it straight away.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, Conservatives, Liberals