Pundits' Guide

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The Federal Liberal Party gave a briefing to the Ottawa media to update them on eligible candidates, contest rules, and various deadlines. The Hill Times has a good overview of the session, but here's a briefing note with more of the details that would be of interest to Pundits' Guide readers.

UPDATE: Note several clarifications and additions below, courtesy of the helpful folks over at LPC headquarters. Thanks!

The Contestants

Nine contestants passed all the party's requirements in order to qualify for a spot on the ballot, all of whom are well known by now.

[Note that under the Election Act, a "candidate" is someone who runs for a seat in the House of Commons, while a "contestant" is someone who runs in a nomination contest or leadership contest. I will use both terms interchangeably, so as not to sound too jargony. But it's important to know the difference if you're using the Elections Canada website.]

The party is willing to say that each contestant has met all the candidate registration requirements. But it will not be releasing, for example, which provinces each candidate relied on to meet the "at least 100 signatures from each of 3 provinces" nomination requirement. We learned over the past weekend that it had been an issue for late-comer Martin Cauchon's nomination papers, and that he was trying to make up signatures in Manitoba. One might surmise that the provinces relied on for the nomination papers might give an indication of the various candidates' regional bases of strength, but that's reporting that will have to come by asking each of the different leadership campaigns. It's not coming from the party.

The Electorate

To be eligible to cast a vote for the next Liberal leader, you have to be a member or supporter in good standing as of the cut-off on March 3.

Note that any Canadian who is eligible to vote can enroll as a "supporter" of the Liberal Party at no cost. This description has a few implications. First is that anyone under the age of 18 cannot enroll as a "supporter", but is eligible (if over the age of 13 I believe) to become a party member which costs $10. [UPDATE: However, the membership fee is waived for those aged 14-17.] Same goes for non-citizen permanent residents, as I understand it. Both members and supporters have voting rights for the party leadership, while members can vote on other party matters, and run for a position within the organization or to be a candidate.

But there is a second step to go through before a member or supporter is able to vote, and that's voter registration. This process is designed to confirm the individual's contact information, their eligibility, and their location/residence for the purpose of determining where their vote will be counted. [UPDATE: The Liberal Party points out that security questions will also be included here.]

The registration process starts on Monday, January 21 for those members and supporters already known to the party, and continues until the registration deadline of March 14. Members and supporters will receive a registration package (which is already in the mail, I gather), and they have to return it before the deadline. [UPDATE: Email is being used for most supporters, except those not having an email address, who will receive a package the old-fashioned, snail-mail way.] The package will include various declarations, notably that the supporter supports the principles and values of the party, and is not a supporter or member of another political party. There may still be a charge in order to register, but McKay believes that to be unlikely. I'm told the party is conducting the convention on a cost recovery basis, however.

The party notes that, currently, its "universe" of potential voters stands at 100,000, including 55K members and 45K supporters who have enrolled through the party's website.

Meanwhile, leadership campaigns are signing up supporters and the occasional member. Memberships are still handled through the provincial-territorial associations (PTAs), though you can also join through liberal.ca.

But – and this is a big BUT – Canadians who sign up to become supporters of the Liberal Party through the website of one of leadership contenders, instead of through liberal.ca, will not become known to other leadership contestants until after the March 3 cut-off. Also, those counts are not included in the above figure of 45K.

Leadership campaigns are understandably concentrating on signing up non-paying supporters, rather than paying members, and each has been given access to a website widget by the party to use on their website, for the purpose of enrolling supporters. The supporters all go into the central party's database, but the ones who sign up through a given candidate's website are known only to that candidate's campaign until after March 3.

So, until March 3, a leadership campaign can communicate with all the current members, and any supporters who sign up through the party's website, and any other supporters who have signed up through their own website, but not those who signed up through the website of another campaign.

After the March 3 cut-off, a "preliminary voters list" is compiled and distributed to the various leadership campaigns, who will have an opportunity to scrutinize it and file any challenges, while the registration process concludes. After the registration cut-off on March 14, the "final voters list" is prepared and sent to all the campaigns and presumably the electronic voting vender, Dominion Voting Systems of Toronto*.

Then everyone on the final list will be sent a voting package containing a PIN, which will be able to be used for either telephone or online voting during the one-week voting period from April 6-14.

The party has not decided yet the level of detail in which it will report to the public the membership and supporter counts, and whether by category and/or province. Of course, as part of the final result, the number of eligible voters will be announced, but detail beyond that has yet to be determined.

The Voting and the Results

So, eligible registered voters (whether members or supporters) will receive a voting package, and once voting opens (after the April 6 showcase in Toronto, as I understand it) they will be able to cast their ballot either by phone or online, anytime during the following week until the polls close. "Voting day" which has to be designated under the Elections Act, is April 14, but nothing in the Act prevents early voting.

Dominion Voting Systems is a vendor of voting machines to many jurisdictions in the United States, and has also conducted for example online voting for municipal elections in Peterborough. Interestingly, former Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley serves as the Chair of its Advisory Committee.

Naturally, journalists in attendance at Wednesday's briefing were most curious to know whether the Liberals could avoid the distributed denial of service attack (DDOS) that plagued voting at the NDP's leadership convention last March, and other security issues. Executive Director Ian McKay did not take the opportunity to mau-mau the NDP on this one (for fear I suppose that other problems could come back to haunt the Liberals), but noted that in their analysis of what happened at the NDP convention, the short voting window was what caused the problems. I tend to agree, because the short time windows to vote on each ballot, while the convention was being covered live on television, made for a very attractive target to a hacker.

The Liberals, by contrast, will not be voting in separate rounds of voting for each ballot. They'll be casting a single preferential ballot, the results of which will be announced on April 14. And they'll have all week to do it.

It's unlikely that a glut of voters trying to access the server all at once would become an issue in that case, not least because it will be in the interest of each leadership campaign to pull their votes earlier rather than later in the week.

So, less dramatic, perhaps, but also less attractive to a hacker looking for another notch in his bedpost.

No online form of voting is completely immune from difficulties, whether in security, privacy, scrutinability or otherwise. But at least a DDOS could not completely derail a voting process as designed in this way.

Votes will be tabulated electronically, by riding, and then each riding's counts will be weighted to 100 points. The bottom candidate will figuratively "drop off", and the next preferential choice still on the ballot of his or her voters will receive those votes, leading to another drop off, another re-apportionment, another count, another drop off, and so on until one candidate obtains more than 50% of all the preferences.

During the NDP race, someone set up a mock ballot at DemoChoice.org to simulate the preferential ballot portion of their voting (though that ballot's link shows it is no longer current), and sure enough someone enterprising has already set up a similar mock ballot for the Liberal race, giving us all something to follow obsessively, and all the campaigns something to spend time freeping. Unfortunately it contains too many unofficial candidates, is missing two of the official ones, and the current leader (Alex Burton) is not even in the real race. But maybe the owner if she or he reads this, could be persuaded to cull out the irrelevant names and add the two missing ones.

The entire counting process at Demochoice.org takes less than a tenth of a second, and it probably will not take all that much longer for the Liberals in reality. But of course there's TV to consider, so no doubt it will be dragged out in some way or another.

Because the results will be tabulated electronically, they will theoretically be available by "ballot", by province, and/or by riding. But again, the party has not yet decided how much information to release and when.

Miscellaneous

The party also outlined further details about the debates, which you'll be able to read about at their leadership website. All debates will be livestreamed through their website at liberal.ca, in addition to any live coverage they garner from the networks.

Executive Director Ian McKay said that the supporter category did not seem to be unduly hampering their normal membership levels, and he also indicated that fundraising by the leadership candidates was not hampering the party's own fundraising efforts, noting that they had had their "best December ever" (results that will be reported in a few weeks).

Oh, and there will be a deadline for any leadership candidate who wants to withdraw from the race without appearing on the ballot, but McKay says they'll be taking advice from their vendor on what the optimum day is for that, so nothing specific to announce there as yet.

That seems to be the full wrap. Thanks to the Liberal Party for inviting me to observe and live-tweet the proceedings. I'll see if I can make it out to Vancouver for Sunday's debate.

Don't forget to check out the Pundits' Guide Liberal Leadership social media aggregator page for all the latest Facebook, Twitter, and Google News feeds in one place. http://lpcldr.punditsguide.ca

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I have to declare a conflict of interest, inasmuch as two young people in my partner's extended family have worked for Dominion Voting Systems, and one still does.

The entry fee and other financial rules established by the federal Liberal Party for the conduct of its leadership race could wind up being the decisive factor in the outcome – and leave several aspiring candidates at the altar of unmet fundraising expectations.

To date only Justin Trudeau and Deborah Coyne have been accepted as registered candidates by the Liberal Party, and have filed their Leadership Contestant Registration Reports with Elections Canada. Those reports detail what the candidates have raised and/or borrowed prior to their registration. Here's a summary of what they say:

[* Note that this category is not available for leadership contributions made through the registered party, only for those made directly to a contestant's campaign. The Liberals, like the NDP before them, are insisting that contributions to leadership contestants - once they are registered with the party - must go through the party. Thus we will see names and amounts for all donors on all their subsequent reports. Justin Trudeau's campaign opted to report all names and amounts on his registration report in spite of this distinction. I did an exhaustive (some might say exhausting) review of the rules for leadership contestant reporting, during the NDP leadership race (read down half-way for the "Primer" on it).]

Looking at these registration reports, a few things become clear:

• Both registered candidates to date borrowed the funds to pay their first installment of the party's entry fee (Mr. Trudeau from the Bank of Montréal, and Ms. Coyne from herself).
• And while Trudeau had already raised just under 10% of the spending limit by the time the race had started, Coyne (in spite of being on a near-constant leadership tour since last July, and not registering until mid-November) had raised less than $3,000. UPDATE: Let's remember that contributions made directly to a candidate (i.e., and not going through a party) are not eligible for a political contribution tax credit. Thanks to a regular reader for reminding us of this point.

Now, some of the Liberal Party's own leadership rules will start to have a bearing on what happens next. Consider:

• The next installment of the entry fee is another $25,000 which is due for all registrants on December 15. Any new candidate wanting to register between December 15 and January 13 would then have to post a $50,000 fee. The third and final installment for registered candidates is due on January 13, and the last day to register as new candidate is Monday, January 14.
• A candidate such as Deborah Coyne who had not raised the $25,000 needed to pay the second installment as of November 7 would have to raise a net of $657 and change daily until December 15 in order to do so. In the alternative, such a candidate could loan him- or herself another $25,000, or take out a loan at a bank or credit union.
• The party will not let candidates take out more than $75,000 in loans, nor will it allow any candidate to rack up more than $25,000 in unpaid bills on any of their monthly financial reports to the party. The relevant sections of the rules are transcribed here.

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What is the entry fee to become a candidate for the 2013 LPC Leadership?

The entry fee to become a candidate for the 2013 LPC Leadership is $75 000 non-refundable, and payable to the LPC in three installments as follows:

(i)   $25 000 on the date of the leadership contestant’s registration with the Party;

(ii)  $25 000 thirty days after the call of the 2013 LPC Leadership (December 15 2012); and

(iii) $25 000 ninety days before the day of the vote (January 13 2013)

What is the spending limit for candidates for the 2013 LPC Leadership?

The spending limit for candidates for the 2013 LPC Leadership is $950 000, from September 6, 2012, exclusive of the entry fee, transfers made to or withheld by the LPC for the processing of donations or services incurred, and certain policy research expenses, fundraising costs, candidate travel and other expenses as recommended by the Leadership Expenses Committee or the Ad Hoc Leadership Vote and Expenses Committee in the interim.

What is the loan limit for candidates for the 2013 LPC Leadership?

No 2013 LPC Leadership candidate shall exceed or allow his or her leadership campaign to exceed $25 000 in total leadership campaign accrued, unpaid and contingent liabilities, at the time of reporting, nor shall any such candidate or candidate’s campaign exceed a Maximum Total Campaign Debt of $75 000 in the form of loans, held by the candidate and/or third parties, subject to any rules adopted by the Leadership Expenses Committee or the Ad Hoc Leadership Vote and Expenses Committee in the interim, further and subject to any bylaw adopted pursuant to Chapter 15 of the LPC Constitution.

Will there be a levy on donations to 2013 LPC Leadership candidates?

10% of funds donated to 2013 LPC Leadership candidates will be levied by the LPC.

What are the reporting requirements for candidates in the 2013 LPC Leadership?

In addition to the statutory reporting required by Elections Canada, candidates in the 2013 LPC Leadership will be required to produce monthly expenditures reports to the LPC from the outset of the campaign.

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To run a fully-funded leadership campaign (let's call that $950K, notwithstanding the other caveats) with a zero balance by the end of the contest on April 14, and assuming that a campaign started fundraising on September 6 (the day from which the party is counting leadership contest expenses), one would have to have raised at least $4,300 on average per day for those 220 days.

Someone wanting to enter the race and at least pay the entry fees on time without going into debt at all, would have had to raise on average $500/day for the 100 days between September 6 and December 15, and then another $862 daily on average for the next 29 days till January 13. And that's not counting any spending on leadership expenses themselves: staffing costs, designing and hosting websites, brochures, business cards, video production, databases, translation, etc., or other non-ceiling costs like candidate travel, polling and opinion research, and fundraising costs.

Then suppose you've made it over the first three hurdles of the entry fee, you still need to raise at least $862 daily on average to avoid running up more than $25K in unpaid bills, unless you don't spend anything. Even if you took out the maximum loan ceiling to cover the entry free, you would have to raise money to cover all other expenses out of fundraising.

We'll get our first look into who is making progress in the fundraising contest when the Liberal Party files its fourth quarter return at the end of January, but if more than a few other candidates don't get registered soon with the party and then Elections Canada, I think we'll know why.

Any campaign not raising a thousand dollars a day is going to have a hard time staying in the race under these rules, unless they are prepared to do so using mostly deficit financing.

Turning to the source of Justin Trudeau's early fundraising as detailed in his registration report, here's the breakdown by region, and contribution size:

[click on image to open full-sized PDF version]

You'll notice that 68% of Mr. Trudeau's early fundraising came from donors who have now given their maximum for the leadership race, including 10 $1,200 donors each from Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, 13 from Vancouver, and another 3 from around Toronto, along with a smattering from the rest of the country. Ms. Coyne picked up donations from Manitoba, the Toronto area and Nova Scotia.

For the latest on the Federal Liberal Leadership Race, don't forget to follow the half-hourly news updates, and social media tickers at the Pundits' Guide LPCLdr portal page:  http://lpcldr.punditsguide.ca. It's recently been updated with the latest candidate announcements and websites.

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None of the three by-election ridings changed hands at the end of the day, but in the short-term at least, a lot more changed under the surface than expected.

By-Election Metrics – 2012 By (Nov)

Conservative candidate Joan Crockatt kept party bastion Calgary Centre, AB in the fold by a margin of 1,167 votes or 4.2% of the vote, obtaining a 36.9% vote-share by the time all the polls had been counted, over her nearest competitor Liberal Harvey Locke (at 32.7%).

Meanwhile, expected front-runner Murray Rankin turned in a squeaker for the NDP in their expected stronghold of Victoria, BC, besting the dark-horse Green Party candidate Donald Galloway by 1,151 votes or 3.0% of the vote, and garnering 37.2% of the vote to Galloway's 34.3%.

Victoria bested Calgary in by-election turnout, however, with a final tally of 43.9% (based on the counts from the preliminary voters list) versus just 29.4% in Calgary Centre – the riding everyone had been watching more closely, and which seemed based on early reports to have had higher volumes at the polls. This puts the Victoria by-election turnout higher than any other by-election since Roberval–Lac St-Jean, QC in 2007 (46.8%), and just barely ahead of the by-election to replace Jack Layton last March in Toronto–Danforth, ON (43.2%).

Meanwhile in the third by-election riding of Durham, ON last night, Conservative candidate Erin O'Toole collected over 50% of the vote, with the Liberals maintaining their 17%-ish vote share, and the NDP's Larry O'Connor gaining about 5% in vote-share mainly at the Conservatives' and Greens' expense to solidify second place.

Durham also landed somewhere between Calgary Centre and Victoria in the turnout sweepstakes, finishing at 35.8%.

Party Scorecard – 2012 By (Nov)

It was a night of conundrums though, because the two largest parties in Parliament lost the greatest number of votes and vote-shares, yet kept their seats; while on the other hand the Liberals – and especially the Greens – gained votes and vote-share but left empty-handed for all their efforts.

Close, as they say, only counts in horseshoes. It sure doesn't count in a first-past-the-post Westminster-style parliamentary system.

Although so-closely losing the chance at a second seat in Parliament will be felt keenly by the Green Party, they can at least take satisfaction in a very strong performance indeed in both Victoria and Calgary Centre. For once, the party (which has had a reputation for over-hyping its expected performance in the past), actually met the hype with performance.

The Liberals, however – who had built up so many hopes for an outright win in Calgary Centre – are now left unable to claim credit for their candidate's unusually strong performance, and will start to cast around for who or what was responsible for the shortfall. Did Ottawa South, ON Liberal MP David McGuinty's ill-fated remarks about the role of Albertans – and the found interview with leadership candidate and Papineau, QC MP Justin Trudeau on the same subject – inadvertantly seal the ballot question as one favouring the Conservatives? Did the unexpectedly strong performance of Green Party candidate Chris Turner, or the quixotic methodology used by 1CalgaryCentre.com to endorse him, "split the progressive vote"? No doubt, some in the party will look to McGuinty and Trudeau, who will in turn look backwards to Elizabeth May. It's going to be a very chilly corner of the House of Commons when everyone gets back to Ottawa, that's for sure.

But, if you look more closely at the right-hand side of the second graph above, and examine the parties' historic vote-shares in the three by-election ridings, you are immediately struck by what became in many ways the most unexpected story of the evening. And this has big implications for all those trying to "unite the progressive vote" like LeadNow.ca, 1CalgaryCentre.com, and authors like Paul Adams of PowerTrap.ca …

… The Green Party cut into the Conservative vote in Western Canada. Substantially.

Party Vote-Shares, November 2012 By-elections, and change from 2011 GE

Mathematically, even if you assume that the entire 11 point NDP drop in Calgary Centre switched to Chris Turner, the Greens gained at least 4.6 percentage points from the Conservatives over the May 2011 general election.

Same goes for Victoria, where the Greens gained 9.2 points in vote-share from the Conservatives versus 13.6 from the NDP.

What this suggests to me is that strategies aimed at causing parties to withdraw from certain ridings may have quite different outcomes than their proponents predict. And the one riding that was the most beset with endless clumsy tactical manipulation and cross-party griping about who was splitting whose vote, also wound up (perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not) being the riding with the lowest voter turnout.

Meanwhile, the Greens have clearly delivered a scare to the three other political parties in english Canada in this round of by-elections, and have finally understood the importance of a beach-head versus rising tide strategy to a small party, especially during by-elections. But their continued existence is also in greater jeopardy from the cuts to the public subsidy, as they are not raising nearly enough just yet to replace it and be able to run a substantial enough national campaign to keep beach-head seats in the fold. Also, they have yet to be able to sustain an eye-popping performance from one campaign into the next, as the history of London North Centre, ON, Central Nova, NS, Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, ON, and Guelph, ON amongst others amply demonstrates.

So, if we can read the tea-leaves and try to discern some overall mandates and messages from Monday's by-election results, they might be these:

• to the two largest national parties, you're on a short-leash for now
• to the Liberals, read the hypothetical national polls about a Trudeau-led majority with wariness, because when the rubber hit the road on Monday, only one of the 3 ridings showed any growth in the party's vote at all
• to the co-operation / strategic voting gimmickerists, double-check your assumptions before you launch any more counter-productive initiatives

In the coming days, Elections Canada will release the validated results for the three ridings, and within 90 days the "official voting results (OVR)", including poll-by-poll results and an accurate take on turnouts. Although two of the ridings were close, neither met the narrow test for an automatic recount, and both Messrs. Locke and Galloway have already conceded to their opponents, so that should be that.

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For the first time ever, since early 2008, the NDP has reported a higher national quarterly contributions total than the Liberal Party.

The upstart party filed a third quarter return late yesterday showing $1,459,561.05 in contributions, versus $1,440,761.34 for its former "natural governing" competitor, a gap to the upside of $19K after falling $60K short of that objective in the second quarter.

UPDATE: David Akin reminds us that the NDP did beat the Liberals in the first quarter of 2007 as well. This was in the first quarter of Stéphane Dion's leadership of that party, and in the wake of a blowout fourth quarter for the Liberal Party in 2006-Q4. You can't beat David's memory!

UPDATE: Brian Klunder, who would know, reminds us that the NDP beat the Liberals in the first quarter of 2008 as well. I am just going to have to plead guilty to writing based on my recollection, even after painstakingly collecting and publishing all the raw data over the years. Sorry folks, and thanks to Brian and David for setting me straight.

Evidence suggests the Liberals knew they were in danger of being bested, as a series of fundraising emails went out to their list of contacts in late September, with increasingly dire warnings about the possibility.

On the bright side for them, the Liberals are still ahead of the NDP year-to-date: — $5,580,627.41 versus $5,200,412.87 — based on a stronger first quarter when the Liberals had their annual convention, and the NDP — in spite of having a very strong quarter by its own standards — was still engaged in a leadership race. To the extent that the Liberal convention fees used up the annual maximum contribution for many of that party's major contributors, and a leadership race diverts attention from national party fundraising, we might expect to see the NDP catch up to and perhaps even pass the Liberals by December.

Historically, the third quarter is difficult for any party to fundraise in, given that it comprises two of the summer months plus September. The major exceptions on the upside come when there is a federal election campaign underway or anticipated soon afterwards, and on the downside a third quarter after an election is bound to be below average. However, the NDP was able to increase its third quarter take in 2012 by almost a half of its previous best-ever non-election year results, and to more than double its usual previous take. And the party will tell anyone who asks that it raised 85% more than last year, although I don't think that's the most valid comparison when last year was a third quarter just after a federal election, and the party had withdrawn from the field in favour of its provincial cousins then fighting election campaigns.

But what we also see is that the NDP is starting to grow its base of small contributors, which is key to growing a fundraising base over the long-term, while the Liberals are falling back somewhat in that objective, at least in the short-term (see the darker colour section of the bars for each party in the first chart).

A look at the Conservative Party's fundraising record shows the long-term importance of building a base of small donors, as they have clearly been able to promote many small donors to larger donors over much of the intervening six years or so. But that party showed a bit of retrenchment in Q3 of 2012 as compared with recent non-election third quarters, posting the lowest number since 2007 ($3.42M vs $3.15M), though notably that was also the year just following a successful election campaign. And you can't really ever call it a bad quarter when you continue to raise as much as your competitors combined!

The Green Party is also showing some growth in its non-election year fundraising, while the Bloc Québécois is showing the expected hit from the provincial election cycle.

The NDP's national fundraising numbers come at the same time as some of its provincial sections are receiving positive attention from previously atypical financial supporters, with even Enbridge buying a table at a recent fundraising dinner for the BC-NDP's leader Adrian Dix, and this Thursday's Ontario NDP "Vision Banquet" with Andrea Horwath and Tom Mulcair being sold out — including by some reports to many of the same suddenly-interested contributors from the business community.

On the leadership fundraising side, Hedy Fry raised $100, Joe Volpe raised $1,100 and Martha Hall Findlay raised the rest of the $59,964.17 in reported directed leadership contributions on the Liberal Party's return. Near as I can tell, any leadership contestant in the 2012/2013 Liberal leadership race must track what they spend and raise now and report it in their eventual registration with Elections Canada, but as their race doesn't start until mid-November, we're not seeing any of that reported on the party return in this quarter.

As for the NDP leadership race contestants, winner Tom Mulcair took in roughly half of the $91K or so raised by all the leadership candidates, as compared with Brian Topp who was ahead in the second quarter. More on leadership fundraising later, as and if time permits.

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The Prime Minister has called three federal by-elections for November 26 in the vacant ridings of Durham, ON, Calgary Centre, AB, and Victoria, BC.

The call came while NDP leader Tom Mulcair was addressing his party's federal council in Ottawa, with nominated Victoria NDP candidate Murray Rankin in the front row of the audience. Mulcair and Rankin addressed the media afterwards, telling them that the party planned to accelerate its nomination timelines in the other two ridings. A three-way contested nomination had been scheduled for next Saturday October 27 in Calgary Centre, while another two-way contest was scheduled for Monday October 30 in Durham.

The call also came a day after the governing Conservatives nominated their remaining candidate, Vancouver Island Technology Park president Dale Gann, in Victoria riding. Gann was acclaimed yesterday, according to a brief on the Victoria Times-Colonist's website, though hopefully we'll get more coverage of that meeting later on.

Most interestingly, of course, the by-elections were called *before* the Supreme Court released its ruling on the Etobicoke Centre case, leading to much wild speculation on Twitter. I'm actually in the middle of writing a long contrarian analysis of that case, but got sidetracked by covering Rankin's speech this morning, and then the by-election call, so bear with me.

Here's what we know about the state of the race in each riding, moving from east to west:

Durham, ON

Conservative candidate Erin O'Toole was out at a church pancake breakfast with his phone off, and missed a few calls this morning he says, one of which was advising him of the official launch of the campaign. O'Toole is a lawyer, and the son of the current PC member of the Ontario provincial parliament for the same riding. He was acclaimed back on August 24, after former Conservative M.P. Bev Oda announced her resignation effective July 31, 2012, and after two other nomination contestants (Chris Topple and Thomas Coughlan) withdrew from the race. He's had the usual round of ministerial visits, and looks to have a well-developed campaign in place.

The Liberals re-appointed their 2011 general election candidate, former vice-president and chief operating officer of the Toronto Board of Trade Grant Humes, at the beginning of this month (October 1). No other candidates seemed to be under consideration. Humes' candidacy was supported by a visit from Interim Leader Bob Rae, and the riding association has been gearing up since August 19 according to their website, though his own site is not up yet and he doesn't have a politician's "page" on Facebook.

The Green Party has apparently said that it will not run a candidate in Durham, but I haven't seen that confirmed anywhere online as yet. According to their riding association's website, they were ramping up for the by-election as of two days after the announcement of Oda's resignation, but there hasn't been any activity on the site since then.

UPDATE: The Durham Greens website has now been updated to report that they will be running a candidate (but no name as yet).

UPDATE: The Christian Heritage Party does have candidate Andrew Moriarity in place, however.

Activity by the NDP in the riding was lower profile until just this past week, when suddenly the former mayor of Brock Township (also a former Durham MPP) Larry O'Connor announced on Twitter that he would be seeking the party's nomination. O'Connor also recently ran to be the vice-chair of the Métis Nation of Ontario, and traces his ancestry back to the community of Blind River. He is being contested by Kim King of Port Perry, who recently retired as a provincial probation and parole officer in Uxbridge, according to the Uxbridge Standard. The original nomination meeting date of October 30 is now apparently being moved up.

UPDATE: The NDP nomination meeting has now been moved up to October 23.

Interest in the nominations alone would tend to suggest the riding will remain a two-way Conservative-NDP contest, though for the NDP they will be taking the opportunity to build a better organization in the riding than they could have counted on before. Their 21% vote-share and 2nd place standing in last year's general election would have come in the absence of really any kind of on-the-ground campaign, so we'll see what kind of difference a ground game and spending more than 3% of the limit makes when not facing a government incumbent.

Calgary Centre, AB

Well-known political commentator, communications consultant and former managing editor of the Calgary Herald, Joan Crockatt, defeated a large slate of opponents to win the Conservative nomination on the fourth ballot last August 24 in this traditionally Conservative seat, and will almost certainly be the only woman from a major political party contesting any of the three by-elections.

Although she's pro-choice and a supporter of equal marriage, Crockatt's candidacy otherwise is considered a win for the more conservative Wild Rose side of the movement in Alberta over their red tory cousins, leading some to believe that there could be an opening for a "progressive" candidate to win the riding, presuming the "progressive" forces could be somehow combined. Enter the registered third party "1 Calgary Centre", founded by Naheed Nenshi's former pollster Brian F. Singh and some other named and unnamed backers. Alberta being Alberta and Calgary being Calgary, "progressive" now means everything to the left of Joan Crockatt, with even the Progressive Conservative Canadian candidate, Ben Christensen – a backer of Calgary's occupy movement last year – participating in yesterday's 1 Calgary Centre "unconference" beauty contest of the non-Joan Crockatt candidates.

The only nominated candidate or nomination candidate to Ms. Crockatt's left not to participate in yesterday's 1 Calgary Centre forum was Liberal Harvey Locke, a former provincial Alberta Liberal party president and former city councillor. [UPDATE: no, that's my memory playing tricks with me]. Locke and his team opted not to participate in that conference in favour of hosting a visit from putative federal Liberal leadership contender and party House Leader Marc Garneau, but then tweeted frequently about how very very busy they were, perhaps regretting the decision later in the day. They are running as the historic alternative, with Locke's first leaflet emphasizing his record as a "progressive entrepreneur", who is "fiscally responsible, socially progressive, and environmentally responsible". His team was dropping flyers across the riding yesterday afternoon.

At least some people believe that 1 Calgary Centre was set up to try and boost the chances of the Green Party's candidate, essayist and urban renewal guru Chris Turner, though the group vigourously denies that. Turner was acclaimed by his party, with leader Elizabeth May in attendance, last month on September 12, and the Greens are promising a fully-funded campaign, based on momentum and what they call a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to unite our voices and vote for real leadership".

Meanwhile the NDP, which had been playing its cards close to its chest in the riding with a number of low-profile nomination contestants testing the waters, now appears to have recruited a candidate that has some party stalwarts in the province pretty excited. "Vibrant Calgary" executive director Dan Meades, originally from St. John's, Newfoundland and known for his work fighting poverty and as a advocate for the city's poorest citizens, will join diesel engineer Brian Malkinson and armed forces officer Matthew McMillan in the nomination race (social media expert Scott H. Payne having already withdrawn in Meades' favour), and all three candidates attended yesterday's morning discussions at the 1 Calgary Centre conference, and joined Turner and Christensen in the afternoon candidates' panel. The party had scheduled its nomination meeting for next Saturday October 27, but is now in the process of moving that up.

UPDATE: The NDP nomination meeting was rescheduled to October 23.

If Meades is nominated, that will make two by-election candidates with TEDx talks under their belt: Chris Turner's talk on "The Great Leap Sideways" can be found here, while Meades talks about "Time to End Poverty" here and "Challenging Malignant Indifference" here.

Given the calibre of the candidates who have come forward, if Calgary does decide to look elsewhere than the favoured Conservatives, they will have a difficult choice. On the other hand, betting against a Conservative win here would put you at odds with decades of history. The race for second place should keep pollsters and pundits busy enough, and I suspect we'll see a lot of riding polls early on, trying to game the race before it's started and force the hand of one party or another.

Victoria, BC

It now seems that the acclamation of Conservative candidate Dale Gann was the remaining precondition for the Prime Minister to call the three outstanding by-elections. Gann assumed the post after two other competitors demurred, including BC lobbyist Mike Geoghegan and former candidate Patrick Hunt. He has a very interesting background in promoting, financing and facilitating investment in high tech businesses in the south Island, and is the first Conservative candidate I've seen in a while to refer to his female spouse as his "partner". Cool.

Gann is joining a very strong slate of candidates from the other parties, starting with U Vic law prof Donald Galloway who assumed the Green nomination after his opponent won the tied contest on a coin-toss and then withdrew, and then economist and one-time Toronto-area NDP candidate Paul Summerville who was acclaimed as the Liberal candidate, and finally the NDP's Murray Rankin, an environmental and aboriginal law expert with many high-profile public roles in the province's recent history, who won a four-way contested nomination last weekend and was in Ottawa for meetings when the by-elections were called.

Ironically, every one of the candidates has a relationship with the University of Victoria, the latter three being professors at one time or another, while Mr. Gann is president of the U-Vic-affiliated Vancouver Island Technology Park and Marine Technology Centre.

Again, a very strong slate, but a campaign whose contest Rankin told members of the national press gallery earlier today would probably wind up being a two-way race between himself and the Conservative candidate, and I'd have to agree with him on that at this stage of the game.

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Of course, we can't end this post without noting that the Prime Minister called the by-elections before the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on the Etobicoke Centre case. There were some rumours circulating on Twitter that there had been a leak of the court's ruling, to the effect that they upheld the lower court but on a split decision. I'd have to think a leak of a Supreme Court ruling would be unprecedented and very big news indeed. Unfortunately I can't find any other evidence for this assertion.

My own feeling for some time has been that the more time the court took to consider its ruling, the less likely it was to uphold the lower court ruling. Upholding the lower court ruling meaning overturning the election, of course, while overturning the lower court implies sustaining the election result, in case you weren't already confused enough.

Suppose the court did uphold the lower court ruling to declare the election null and void on Thursday, though. What would that do to the by-election clock?

Well, under the Parliament of Canada act, the Speaker of the House of Commons would be notified of the vacancy, and would have to notify the Chief Electoral Officer. Assuming that all happened the same day as the ruling came down, 11 days later (November 5) would be the first day the PM could call a by-election (putting E-Day on Monday, December 17 or after), and 180 days later (April 23, 2013) would be the last day it could be called – for a voting day of Monday, June 3 or after.

Who knows how many other by-elections there might be to call by that time: for example, if Conservative M.P. Peter Penashue's expense ceiling difficulties became serious, Labrador, NL might open up, or if Conservative M.P. Keith Ashfield's health worsened (here's hoping not, of course) Fredericton, NB might become vacant, or if Liberal M.P. Denis Coderre runs – as expected – for mayor of Montreal and/or Olivia Chow succumbs to the not-so-subtle media campaign to take on Rob Ford, we might also see Bourassa, QC and Trinity-Spadina, ON in play.

But all of that is a world away. Today we start the 36 day countdown to three known by-elections, and Pundits' Guide is the place to be if you want the most in-depth coverage of all three.

Already tweeted, but for those of you not on Twitter, a few notes from the campaign trail.

* Durham, ON – Former MPP and Brock Township mayor Larry O’Connor announced earlier today on Twitter that he would be running for the NDP nomination in that riding. I don’t have it confirmed, but am hearing that October 30 is the likely date. If O’Connor is uncontested, he would join Conservative Erin O’Toole, Liberal Grant Humes, and a Green to be named later.

* Calgary Centre, AB – One of the candidates for the NDP nomination, social media consultant Scott Payne, announced late last night on Facebook that given an imminent announcement by another “stronger and compelling” candidate, he was withdrawing from the race. New Democrats will meet there on October 27 to pick from amongst the two remaining and one emerging nomination contestants. The winner will join Conservative candidate Joan Crockatt, Green candidate Chris Turner, and Liberal standard-bearer Harvey Locke.

* Victoria, BC – Local sources report the registration of a domain-name for Dale Gann that redirects to the Conservative Party’s candidate website platform. It thus appears that the Vancouver Island Technology Park president Is probably the only vetted candidate, and will be acclaimed at their meeting, reported to be scheduled for this Saturday. Gann’s nomination would round out the slate of candidates for the by-election in that riding, including Green Donald Galloway, Liberal Paul Summerville, and New Democrat Murray Rankin.

A bit of news from here and there on the by-election trail.

• Calgary Centre, AB – The NDP has now set a date for its nomination meeting – Saturday, October 27. Running so far are former Calgary Northwest provincial candidate and diesel engineer Brian Malkinson, young party activist Matthew McMillan, and social media expert Scott H. Payne. The party usually closes nominations seven days prior to a nomination meeting, so we should know by Saturday if that's the entire list. Already in place are Conservative candidate Joan Crockatt, Green candidate Chris Turner, and Liberal candidate Harvey Locke.
• Durham, ON – The NDP has also reportedly set a date for its nomination meeting here, which I'm picking up as October 30. Meanwhile, the Christian Heritage Party announced via the Scugog Standard that their 2011 candidate Andrew Moriarity would be making a return appearance for the by-election. I've checked the websites of the CHP, Libertarians, and Pirate Party and don't see any other by-election activity though.
• Victoria, BC – In an article about the NDP nomination race that selected Murray Rankin last weekend, the Victoria Times-Colonist reported that the Conservative nomination was set for Saturday October 20 and that former candidate Patrick Hunt would run again. But the VicNews.com website actually spoke with Hunt, and confirmed he was *not* running. With BC Lobbyist Mike Geoghegan already out of the running as well. I guess this leaves Dale Gann (who is the president of the Vancouver Island Technology Park) or perhaps there will be some new names. Meanwhile, Vaughn Palmer draws on his long memory for BC political history to fill us in on Murray Rankin.

Still no word from the Supreme Court on when the Etobicoke Centre ruling is coming.

At this stage, therefore, most people are assuming that the by-election call will come either this weekend or next weekend, for either Monday, November 26 or Monday, December 3.

Pending the expected call of at least three by-elections next month, I've moved the website into by-election mode.

A summary table appears on the main index page, with links to all the resources for by-election ridings, and a separate page appears for the still un-dated electoral event.

As you can see, the Liberals have nominated candidates in all three ridings now, while the Conservatives have nominated in two with a third nomination scheduled for Victoria riding on October 20, which will see Dale Gann run against former candidate Patrick Hunt. BC Lobbyist Mike Geoghegan has withdrawn from the race as of Sunday morning. The Victoria NDP nominated lawyer Murray Rankin Sunday afternoon, as he won two-thirds of all 535 votes cast on the first ballot. They also have a nomination race underway in Calgary Centre, as reported last time, but no meeting date as yet. The Green Party has two candidates in place. Neither the NDP nor the Greens have a candidate in Durham riding yet, that I can tell.

One disturbing trend is that so far there has only been one woman nominated by any party in any of these ridings, Joan Crockatt in Calgary Centre. And that's out of nine nominations.

Obviously Etobicoke Centre has been omitted from the list of ridings included in these by-elections until the Supreme Court rulings on the appeal, but I am tracking it on the main page.

All candidates and their websites if any have now been entered into the database and appear on the riding pages for each seat as well. It also looks like I need to check for any updates to the candidate and EDA financial returns from last year, especially for Victoria which is missing a few EDA returns in my database.

I plan to update the byelxn.punditsguide.ca social media aggregator for the current set of by-election ridings as well, and then write regular wraps on how the campaigns are going. If you live in one of the ridings, or are involved with one of the campaigns, please drop us a note or comment to pass along how it's going out there.

[Welcome, National Newswatch readers!]

Time is running out for a by-election call in three open seats – and possibly a fourth depending on the Supreme Court – if the vote is to be held before the Christmas break of the House of Commons.

[UPDATE: See below for a few additions and one correction, thanks to a few alert and well-informed readers.]

[Re-UPDATE: The Ryan Cleary event listed below has been cancelled due to a family emergency.]

[Further UPDATE: Donald Galloway is a professor of law, especially refugee law, and his opponent's name is spelled Moat, not Moats.]

[Final UPDATE: The Saturday Victoria Times-Colonist is reporting that the Conservative nomination is scheduled for next Saturday, October 20, but only reports Patrick Hunt's name as a potential candidate. This would give a potential by-election date of November 26, or December 3, 10, or 17.]

In the first of those seats to become vacant, Calgary Centre, AB, a by-election must be called by Tuesday, December 4th. But given the minimum 36-day writ period ending on a Monday (or a Tuesday if the Monday is a statuatory holiday), that would put E-day on or after Monday, January 14 — which is pretty cold in Calgary I'm reliably told. In fact the city saw its first overnight snowfall on Thursday morning, some of which had still not melted by mid-afternoon.

Walking that deadline backwards, we get the following dates:

While I think we can safely rule out Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, some other dates and variables may factor into the Prime Minister's decision about timing, apart from the Calgary Centre deadline and waiting for the Supreme Court ruling.

• Remembrance Day – I'm not completely sure what impact this could be perceived to have, but am sure its possible ramifications both pro and con would have been considered by the Conservatives, though if anything they probably would have liked people to vote the day afterwards, an option that is out of reach now.
• The adjournment of the House of Commons – The chamber is set to adjourn on Friday December 14 for the holiday break, and scheduled to return on Monday, January 28 unless prorogued in the meantime. It's not that the votes of the new MPs would change the balance of power in the Commons, but unless a by-election is called soon, they won't be able to take their seats until late January. And much later than the middle of December probably means a writ period that would span the Christmas holidays.
• Fall omnibus legislation – Certainly there was no evidence of a once-expected fall omnibus bill in the schedule laid out by Government House Leader Peter Van Loan in his answer to last Thursday's House Business question. But if the government had been hoping to introduce additional budget business in an omnibus bill this fall, it could now risk that becoming an issue in the by-elections. Perhaps this was part of the thinking behind the latest round of "Canada's Economic Action Plan" TV ad buys.
• The Nexen ruling deadline – The original 45-day deadline for the government to give its thumbs-up or -down to the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) proposed takeover of Calgary's Nexen Inc. was set to expire today (October 12), but with the government having exercised its first 30-day extension, the next pressure point occurs on November 9. A further 30-day extension is available under the Investment Canada Act, but only with the consent of CNOOC as the applicant. I'm sure, given the reported differences even within the government's Calgary caucus over its approach to the deal, the Prime Minister would rather have had the by-election out of the way before the decision has to come down, but increasingly that's being held to a very narrow window of opportunity.
• Candidate search and nomination meeting – Durham, ON Conservative candidate Erin O'Toole has been in place since August 24th, when he was acclaimed after other declared candidates either didn't meet the requirements of party headquarters (one-time Colin Carrie aide Chris Topple) or withdrew due to family reasons (Jim Flaherty aide Thomas Coughlan). The next day, Calgary Centre, AB Conservative candidate Joan Crockatt won a highly competitive and well-covered nomination race on the other side of the country. With informed observers believing at the time that the Supreme Court could rule in the middle of August, it's reasonable to conclude that the coordinated deadline for those two nominations was no accident. But the NDP had a surprise up its own sleeve, announcing the resignation of incumbent Victoria, BC MP Denise Savoie two days earlier on August 23. To date there has been no sign of a serious Conservative candidacy in Victoria, a riding where the Conservatives moved into second place in last year's general election. Unless the PM were to appoint a candidate using his power as party leader, presumably nominations would have to open for the usual 7- to 14-day period, if they haven't been already.

  UPDATE: I clearly missed the signs of serious Conservatives, as there are three running (I Google'd hard, I promise). Thanks to a regular reader, we've learned that Mike Geoghegan, Ross Dunn and former Conservative candidate Patrick Hunt will be facing off at a nomination meeting believed to be occurring on October 27th. So, that still leaves December 3, 10, and 17 as realistic prospects for E-day, unless the Prime Minister wants an unusual Christmas or New Year's present, or a writ period that crosses into the new year.

Meanwhile, we're still waiting for the Supreme Court of Canada to rule on Etobicoke Centre, ON Conservative MP Ted Opitz's appeal of the lower court ruling declaring his 26-vote win over Borys Wrzesnewskyj in the 2011 general election null and void. As reported by Michael Harris in Thursday's iPolitics.ca column, the parties to the case were approached for consent to a media lockup when the ruling is released, and were required to reply to that request by September 24 – now almost three weeks ago. The wait must be equally agonizing for Opitz and Wrseznewskyj, not to mention their families and supporters.

If the lower court ruling is upheld, and Mr. Opitz's election is voided, then an 11-day wait would take effect (per s.31(1) of the Parliament of Canada Act), after which the Prime Minister could call a by-election in Etobicoke Centre, ON. Knowing this, the NDP apparently timed Savoie's resignation in order to predate the court ruling, believing that the Conservatives were waiting on its result, and hoping to ensure that Victoria, BC would be included in a round of by-elections in whose ridings otherwise their prospects were much more speculative.

Here's where candidate search is in each of the open or potentially open seats:

Etobicoke Centre, ON

The Liberals renominated former M.P. Borys Wrzesnewskyj by acclamation back on June 12, after he had won in the lower court (read the full ruling here), and after Conservative M.P. Ted Opitz had sought leave to appeal before the Supreme Court, but before the Court announced on July 3 that it would conduct hearings on July 10 (the video of the Supreme Court hearings is archived at CPAC.ca here). Presumably – were the overturning of his election to stand – Conservative M.P. Ted Opitz would run again in the by-election (or as one brainiac asked him on television, "if your election is overturned, do you promise to resign?"). On the other hand, Green Party leader Elizabeth May announced that her party would pursue a cooperation approach and decline to run against Wrzesnewskyj, urging the NDP to follow her lead. Pretty much as predicted. No potential NDP candidate has surfaced yet, but may not have to, if the Supreme Court overturns the lower court ruling by upholding Opitz's appeal.

Calgary Centre, AB

As mentioned above, former Calgary Herald managing editor and well-known communications consultant and TV commentator Joan Crockatt used an early start to her advantage in beating back five eventual challengers after four ballots to win the Conservative nomination on Saturday, August 24. A couple of weeks later, and after teasing what a good candidate she had recruited for several days, Elizabeth May was able to secure the acclamation of her star candidate, urban sustainability expert Chris Turner on September 12, promising to run the best-resourced campaign Calgary had even seen from her party. May has been spinning the results of a snap IVR poll of the riding for the Huffington Post (with an N=250, MoE of ±6.2, and conducted in the middle of the summer on August 14, before Crockatt was even nominated), which showed her party in fourth place but with the most enthusiastic supporters, as suggesting that her candidate was really the best positioned to win against Crockatt.

Naturally not everyone agrees, but the reason all the positioning is going on is that a third party group called 1CalgaryCentre.com was launched to try and instigate a coalescing of support behind one of the so-called "progressive" candidates (i.e., pretty much everyone to Ms. Crockatt's left). Sorry, "to facilitate an organic process where voters from across the political spectrum can come together in a less partisan forum, assess the progressive candidates on their own merits and decide among themselves who they feel is best suited to represent their interests prior to election day", in their words. So long as it's organic, I guess. The site is being run by former Naheed Nenshi organizer Brian F. Singh and writes glowingly of fellow Nenshi alumnus and Alison Redford strategist Stephen Carter, who himself has already ruled out at least one of the "progressive" alternatives.

Not to be outdone, the NDP sent in Nathan Cullen to hold a workshop on "uniting progressives in Calgary Centre" back in July during the Stampede. That led to the appearance of a new Calgary Centre NDP Facebook page, and the appearance of a fairly well-orchestrated communications plan designed to look serious but not raise expectations too much too early, including videos of several Calgary "progressives" talking about what the city meant to them. Already one of those folks has declared his candidacy for the NDP nomination (Brian Malkinson), as now have Matthew McMillan and Scott H Payne. No meeting date has been set, but the party did open nominations on September 5, and then hold a riding strategy meeting on September 17, the photos of which are on the FB page and show a reasonably well-attended effort. St. John's South — Mount Pearl M.P. Ryan Cleary is UPDATE: was slated to be at the University of Calgary today (Friday), and industry critic Peter Julian has made repeated visits as part of his consultations on the CNOOC-Nexen deal.

Meanwhile, already holding two UPDATE: one (Calgary Buffalo; Calgary Varsity is further north) of the provincial seats within the federal boundaries, the Liberals were able to field four candidates for a contested nomination held on Saturday, September 22, which saw former provincial Liberal party president and lawyer Harvey Locke win easily on the first ballot. Wascana Liberal M.P. Ralph Goodale was in attendance at the nomination meeting, and then Locke received Justin Trudeau on his first post-announcement leadership campaign stop last week.

1CalgaryCentre is holding an "unConference for post-partisan politics" a week Saturday on October 20, which given that it's Calgary and given the group's ultimate objective, sounds like a mandatory cattle call for the various non-Joan Crockatt candidates to audition at. Lucky them. The group has answered another sceptic here.

Durham, ON

As already mentioned, Toronto lawyer Erin O'Toole (whose father John is the provincial PC MPP for the same riding) was finally acclaimed on August 24 after two other candidacies fell by the wayside. He has an active website, and has been receiving the full-service complement of ministerial visits, and a photo of himself with Wayne Gretzky.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae visited Bowmanville in the riding and announced the appointment of 2011 candidate and former Toronto Board of Trade chief operating officer Grant Humes as their candidate on Monday, October 1. Rae's visit came after an earlier appearance by NDP Leader Tom Mulcair to meet with the mayors of Bowmanville and Oshawa, and an appearance by Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow with the Oshawa mayor in Toronto. The NDP has not announced any plans for a nomination as yet, but has evidently been working to develop the port authority and the proposed ethanol plant as a potential issue there.

No Green Party candidate has emerged as yet.

Victoria, BC

The race for the NDP nomination in Victoria is as hotly contested as the Conservative nomination was in Calgary Centre, though long-time local politics watcher Bernard Schulmann bemoans the lack of any willingness by any of the candidates to actually disagree with one another in an all-candidates debate. (You can listen to the CFAX radio debate here, and draw your own conclusions.) Aboriginal rights and environmental lawyer Murray Rankin, who was a member of Tom Mulcair's leadership campaign team in BC, and who has been providing legal advice to BC NDP leader Adrian Dix on the Enbridge pipeline, was first into the race, and received a good chunk of the key endorsements right off the bat, including several sometime Green Party supporters. Three days later, however, he was joined in the race by former BC Health and Finance Minister Elizabeth Cull, followed by former school trustee Charley Beresford, and finally Victoria city councillor Ben Isitt. Most observers believe it will come down to a tight race between Rankin and Cull on the final ballot.

Meanwhile on the Liberal side, economist Paul Summerville, who ran for the NDP in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's in 2006, but then joined the Liberal Party to support Bob Rae for leader and ran for Policy Chair at last January's convention, was the first candidate to get "green-lit" by party headquarters. And after prospective Liberal leadership candidate David Merner declined to pursue the nomination in addition to his leadership aspirations, it is now expected that Summerville's acclamation will be confirmed this Saturday, October 13. Summerville will know who his NDP counterpart is the following day, on Sunday October 14. And, by the way, he's now declared himself a supporter of Merner's leadership campaign. Summerville does look to be making opposition to a new sewage treatment plant (aka "billion dollar boondoggle" according to his website) his main election issue (in concert for the most part with the Greens), with all the NDP candidates taking the other side.

The Greens had an interesting turn of events in their nomination meeting where the 40 voting members in attendance evenly split their votes between Trevor Moat and Donald Galloway, which unbeknownst to the two candidates until the following day was settled by a coin toss in Moat's favour. After learning how close he came to winning, Moat stepped down in favour of U-Vic history law professor Galloway, who many had assumed to be party leader Elizabeth May's preferred candidate in the first place. Bernard Von Schulmann has more details, including the interesting observation that we could conceivably have as many as three U-Vic profs running against one another in the by-election.

So far no Conservatives there, though. UPDATE: And three potential Conservative candidates, as corrected above. UPDATE: Nomination meeting is Saturday, October 20, according to the Saturday edition of the Victoria Times-Colonist.

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Photo credit: L. Giannoccaro

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Don't forget, if you are a Liberal leadership news junkie, the easiest way to follow the race at a glance is to check in regularly with the Pundits' Guide to the Liberal Leadership Contest social media aggregator page, at http://lpcldr.punditsguide.ca, where we have Facebook feeds, Twitter follower counts, Facebook like counts, Twitter tickers, and automated Google News searches in both english and french that get refreshed every 30 minutes, along with a calendar, quick guide to the rules and more.

As part of covering the April 14, 2013 Federal Liberal Leadership Contest, I've once again assembled a one-stop shop, social media and news aggregator page to track developments in the race.

Meet the "Pundits' Guide to the Liberal Federal Leadership Race" found at: http://lpcldr.punditsguide.ca.

As before, you can catch the latest news, tweets, and Facebook friend counts for all the candidates, whether declared or still mulling, and I've assembled a calendar of key dates in the race, a summary of the rules, and whatever else I can find that we can count.

And of course, there's an index to all the blogposts I've written and will be writing on the issue of Leadership Contest rules, Leadership Finance, and associated data.

Stay tuned for further updates, as more candidates declare and register. But for now: load and refresh.