Running battle: Ex-MP targets top Tories’ touting of daughter’s nomination foe

A dust-up has erupted in the Conservative nomination race in a Southwestern Ontario Tory stronghold, with the riding’s last MP crying foul over endorsements for a candidate running against his daughter.

A byelection hasn’t been called yet in Oxford, the Woodstock-area seat held by former city police chief Dave MacKenzie for 19 years until he retired last month, triggering a four-candidate nomination races.

Among those running is Deb Tait, MacKenzie’s daughter and a veteran Woodstock city councilor, and Arpan Khanna, the party’s outreach chair who lost a bid to win a Brampton seat for the Tories in 2019.

MacKenzie, in a letter to the House of Commons speaker, the Elections Canada commissioner and Conservative party brass, takes aim at what he deems inappropriate endorsements by party heavyweights for Khanna, whose web page features a quote by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre about the Oxford nomination candidate.

Andrew Scheer, a former Conservative leader and Saskatchewan MP, also backed Khanna’s nomination bid.

In his letter, MacKenzie claims Poilievre’s quote about Khanna is an endorsement violating rules for party executive council members.

The former MP also called on Khanna to disclose the cost of Scheer’s endorsement video in his official filings, and questioned whether parliamentary resources were used in its production.

Party nomination races can get messy and personal, experts say, especially in stronghold ridings where winning is a likely ticket to office.

But that hasn’t been the case for many years in Oxford, which MacKenzie had represented since Paul Martin lost his Liberal majority government in 2004 and which, provincially, has had the same Progressive Conservative MPP since 1995.

One senior Conservative, who didn’t want to be identified, said the Poilievre quote wasn’t given as part of Khanna’s nomination run, but was said in March 2022 as an endorsement of his abilities as a party organizer. Khanna was Poilievre’s leadership campaign co-chair in Ontario.

In an email, Khanna indicated he and Scheer have “been friends for many years” and he’s “thrilled to have his support.”

“We have had an amazing response to our campaign and I’m thrilled to have signed up hundreds of new Conservative members and earn the trust of Oxford residents,” Khanna wrote.

Messy as nomination battles can be, a safe Conservative seat like Oxford also gives the party or its leader a chance to quietly make their mark by encouraging certain people to seek the nomination, said Matt Farrell, a Fanshawe College political science instructor.

“They could parachute into a superstar candidate they want to see in government or cabinet,” Farrell said. “It’s a big attraction for aspiring candidates who want to see themselves in government.”

New party members that signed up to vote in the last Conservative leadership race, which Poilievre won with nearly 70 per cent of the vote in September, may be a wildcard for nomination races in ridings like Oxford, Farrell said.

Poilievre won 59 per cent of the Oxford votes in last year’s Tory leadership race, when the total number of ballots cast was just shy of 2,500. That compared to about 1,400 in the race two years earlier, won by Erin O’Toole.

“You can expect those (new) people to play a part in the nomination contest. You’ll want to tap that . . . You want to take advantage of the enthusiasm, for sure,” Farrell said,

“These things are really just a matter of who can bring the biggest squad to the nomination meeting.”

The deadline to seek the Oxford Conservative nomination was Saturday. No nomination meeting date has been set.

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