Q+A: Nathaniel Erskine-Smith revs up
Also: Promotions in PO, Stiles ups the ante, health deal 2.0, budget primer, Shamji's cure, Hsu writes AG, sartorial shade, more wedding woes
ABOVE THE FOLD
I’m late for a call with NATHANIEL ERSKINE-SMITH.
“Dog emergency,” I texted the would-be provincial Liberal leadership contender after my pup got into a plate of brownies.
“All good, dogs come first,” he replied.
When we finally connected, Erskine-Smith tells me about his childhood dog, who was loaded up in the family’s blue minivan along with their two cats as they hit the road for long drives out East.
Now, the 38-year-old father of two can’t wait to get a pet dog for his young family — but as he gears up to a bid for Liberal leader, it might have to wait a little longer.
“I have a six-year-old and a three-year-old. We don’t have a dog yet because of my travels. My wife would kill me if I came home with a dog and then I was like, ‘By the way, I’m gone to Windsor, good luck with the two kids and the dog!’” he quipped.
It’s the latest in a string of hints that the outspoken Liberal MP for Beaches—East York is poised to make his bid for provincial leader official. But there are caveats.
I caught up with Erskine-Smith to find out where he’s at in his nascent bid, his thoughts on the Draft Mike drama, what it means that he doesn’t have a seat at Queen’s Park, and his stint as a department store model.
Here are the highlights (lightly edited for clarity and length):
QPO: Why are you considering a run for Ontario Liberal Leader?
NES: I got involved in federal politics almost 10 years ago because the Liberal Party was in third place, and we had a very frustrating Conservative majority government. That’s where I felt I could make the biggest difference.
Fast forward to today and all of the parallels are at the provincial level. The difference is I now have seven years of experience in Parliament. I have a track record of, I think, effective advocacy, getting things done, working across party lines and building a really strong political organization here in the East end of Toronto.
And so that core question: how does one make the biggest difference — it’s hard to think of a bigger difference than helping to renew the Ontario Liberal Party.
QPO: You’ve been zig-zagging across the province, soliciting donations, taking French lessons and assembling a team — which includes VINCE GASPARRO, who led then-PM PAUL MARTIN’s Ontario file and served as principal secretary to then-Mayor JOHN TORY. Is your leadership bid pretty much in the bag, or are we still calling it exploratory?
NES: We don’t know the rules yet. The timeline of the race does matter. I think it’s essential that we have a race by the end of this year. There’s no time to wait. There’s so much work to be done to renew the party. So that will factor into my consideration. I want to make sure that I have a really serious team, a really diverse team in every part of this province. We’re getting there, that momentum is growing — but I’m not ready to announce today.
QPO: Is a late-stage leadership race a dealbreaker for you? I’m hearing it might not happen until 2024.
NES: Not necessarily. Having said that, there is so much work to rebuild — the field organization, competitive nominations, the fundraising — and to renew the Ontario Liberal Party to be the serious organization that it needs to be. I don’t think anything less than two years for the leader, whether it’s me or someone else, is going to be sufficient to rebuild the team.
QPO: You don’t have a seat at Queen’s Park and there’s already a Liberal representing your riding of Beaches—East York, MARY-MARGARET MCMAHON. If you become leader, where would you run?
NES: I will run in the first available winnable seat. The leader can’t be a distraction in any general election. If we were the Official Opposition, I think it’s incredibly important to have the leader in the Legislature, holding the government to account. When we don’t have official party status, the leader does not have the same opportunities in the Legislature to play that accountability function.
So it’s incredibly important that the next leader is travelling and holding the government accountable through the media and engaging people across this province.
QPO: Ahead of the party’s convention next weekend, card-carrying Grits are buzzing about whether the leadership contest should be one-member-one-vote instead of the traditional delegated system. Where do you stand?
NES: It is essential that we change the way we elect our next leader to move away from a delegated system to a system that engages grassroots Liberals in a direct way, and to treat all ridings with equal weight. So one-member-one-vote, but a weighted system so every riding is worth the same.
QPO: What did you make of the Draft Mike drama?
NES: I thought the signatories to that letter were touching on an important element of what we need to see more of in politics — which is to do politics differently, a willingness to work across party lines, to be policy focused and to make our politics about ideas.
I was a little bit frustrated by the outreach because I think it did a disservice to our party. The idea that we would have to borrow our principals from another party was an unfortunate way forward for those 39 Liberals [who signed the Draft Mike letter].
At the end of the day, the hard work is still ahead and I have a lot of respect for MIKE SCHREINER.
QPO: What’s something about you people may be surprised to hear?
NES: I ran for city council and lost miserably in my undergrad in Kingston — and I learned everything not to do. I spent $300, only got 297 votes and came in third. I was endorsed by the local papers, but I didn’t knock on enough doors. That was an experience in my life where I thought: I’m never doing this again. But I really learned everything not to do and saw how things should be run. So I was much more successful further down the road.
There was also this one time…No, I won’t go there.
QPO: Oh come on, now you have to.
NES: OK. This was a long time ago — and thankfully before the internet was really a place to store information forever — I did a couple of commercials. It paid my way through university. I wasn’t a serious actor, but there are embarrassing pictures of me somewhere in the Zellers and Sears catalogues.
P.S. Argo, my dog, is doing just fine.
BUDGET 2023 — Mark you calendars: Ontario’s budget drops March 23.
— Teaser: Finance Minister PETER BETHLENFALVY pumped up the spending plan in a flashy social media promo, saying it will lay out a “strong future” amid economic uncertainty. Clip.
— Regular readers will know the budget is being teed up as “more of the same” with an eye to austerity, featuring a much rosier outlook and a lower deficit of $6.5 billion for the current fiscal year.
STILES UPS THE ANTE — NDP Leader MARIT STILES pounced on fresh details about the developer-studded guest list for Ford’s daughter’s wedding events with a new complaint to the ethics commish.
— In her letter to Integrity Commissioner J. DAVID WAKE — who’s already investigating allegations on whether developers were tipped-off about the Greenbelt carve-up — Stiles asks him to determine if Premier DOUG FORD violated conflict-of-interest rules that ban an MPP from accepting gifts connected to the performance of their duties.
— Stiles wrote: “I am concerned that invitees felt pressure to contribute to the Premier’s family fundraiser, particularly as some invitees felt they weren’t being asked as ‘friends’ of the Premier — but as government stakeholders — and feared impacts on their professional reputations and working relationships with the government.”
— Reality check: Wake’s office confirmed it’s considering Stiles’s request, but there’s no timeline for whether he decides to take it on. There’s also no timeline for Wake’s other Greenbelt investigation, which doesn’t include the Premier, but does zero in on Housing Minister STEVE CLARK and his ex-chief-turned-builder-lobbyist LUCA BUCCI.
MEANWHILE, ANOTHER ASK — Independent Officers of the Legislature are all the rage this week. Liberal MPP TED HSU wrote to Auditor General BONNIE LYSYK asking for an investigation into the “consequences of revoking regulations under the Municipal Industrial Strategy for Abatement, which covered industrial effluents.”
— Hsu went on to write: “These regulations ensured that all facilities in an industrial sector complied with the same rules on what effluents they could release into Ontario’s waterways. The previous system consisted of regulations negotiated facility by facility and, as you might expect, be susceptible to political favouritism or influence peddling. Industry might be tempted to focus on succeeding in negotiations, rather than focusing on engineering cleaner, more efficient and competitive manufacturing processes.”
HEALTH DEAL 2.0 — Ottawa and Ontario have inked a bilateral 10-year deal in principle on health care, following the broader $46B nationwide agreement.
— What Ontario is saying: Health Minister SYLVIA JONES said the province accepted the feds’ proposal — which didn’t provide as much funding as the premiers’ wanted — after Ottawa agreed to reviews for long-term sustainability. “We look forward to working with our federal counterparts to reach common ground on ensuring there is sustainable federal health-care funding for generations to come.”
— What Ottawa is saying: Per Jones’s federal counterpart, JEAN-YVES DUCLOS, the deal includes $8.4 billion in new cash, as well an a one-time top-up of $776 million for “urgent needs, especially in pediatric hospitals and emergency rooms, and long wait times for surgeries.”
— What’s next: The agreement paves the way for discussions on how exactly the funds will be spent. Talks are expected to last weeks, and Finance Minister PETER BETHLENFALVY assured the cash will be doled out for health care, “but we need to make sure that it’s sustainable for the future.”
HAPPENING TODAY
— 9:30 a.m.: NDPers CHRIS GLOVER and KRISTYN WONG-TAM are in the Media Studio to raise concerns about the Ford government’s plans for the hot-button Therme Spa development at Ontario Place. Also on hand: Waterfront advocates.
— 10 a.m.: Long-Term Care Minister PAUL CALANDRA is in Oshawa for an announcement.
THE HOUSE IS OUT. Ditto committees. MPPs get back at it on Monday, earlier than usual at 9 a.m.
THURSDAY’S RUNDOWN — A pair of PMB’s hit the Clerk’s table:
Liberal Health critic and ER doctor ADIL SHAMJI says he’s got the cure for hospital staffing woes, via his private member’s Bill 67, the Temporary Nursing Agency Licensing and Regulation Act. It proposes mandatory licensing for temp nursing agencies, a ban on “unconscionable pricing” and restrictions on recruitment.
PO throws shade: As Shamji tabled his bill, the Premier’s Office circulated his public disclosure statements — first reported in this newsletter — which show his pre-MPP salary was from his medical practice. “It’s extremely hypocritical for the Ontario Liberals to decry private health care, while at the same time their own health critic is receiving dividends from his own private health care company,” said press secretary CAITLIN CLARK.
Also: Grit STEPHEN BLAIS introduced Bill 68, the Uploading Highways 174 and 17 Act, to take control away from municipalities and give it to the Ministry of Transportation.
BILL TRACKER:
Plowing ahead: Liberal LUCILLE COLLARD’s all-party sponsored private member’s Bill 41 — to forgive coerced debts for survivors of human trafficking — cleared second-reading debate and is now off to be studied by the Standing Committee on Justice Policy. Of note: PMBs rarely make it into law, especially Oppo ones — but since the PCs are backing Collard’s, it has a good shot at getting enshrined.
Killed: NDP CHANDRA PASMA’s backbench bill that would require landlords to keep emergency power generators died at second reading, with the majority PCs voting against it.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
First in Queen’s Park Observer — PROMOTION IN PO — JULIA CARNEVALE is now Premier DOUG FORD’s special adviser on stakeholder relations. Carnevale has worked in the Premier’s Office since 2021, including as a junior press secretary. Before that, she was a manager at SanRemo bakery, a staple in the heart of Ford Nation, Etobicoke, and the Premier’s favourite bakery.
Carnevale isn’t the only recent move in the PO. As we scooped this week, SHAWN BECKETT was also promoted to policy director.
STAFFING UP — JAYME ALLEN has joined Tourism Minister NEIL LUMSDEN’s office as executive assistant and director of operations.
ON THE CIVIL SERVICE SIDE — JOSEF NICHOLAS BETITA is now a policy adviser to the Deputy Minister of the Treasury Board.
SPOTTED:
Everyone’s favourite Internet dad taking a satirical shot at the PCs plans to boost private health clinics…
The Premier’s Office throwing sartorial shade by calling in a popular Queen’s Park fashion follower to weigh in on NES’s colourful Easter digs…
QUESTION PERIOD
Premier DOUG FORD was MIA during the debate, but a fiery exchange nonetheless. Oppo Leader MARIT STILES led off with the Ford “family fundraiser” — the $150-a-ticket stag and doe that was attended by developers and lobbyists — which House Leader PAUL CALANDRA brushed off as a “drive-by smear.”
THE HIGHLIGHTS: As bargaining begins between nurses and the Ontario Hospital Association, “Will this Premier finally show that he values nurses and health care professionals by raising their wages and negotiating a fair contract?” — “Why is the Ford government destroying medicare?” — “When the Minister of Education promised a normal, stable and enjoyable school year, he forgot to mention the asterisk that said, ‘kids with accessibility needs not included’” — Uphold NDP motion to ensure that full services remain at the Welland hospital — Support anti-human trafficking Bill 41 — “Direct the OHA to compensate nurses fairly” — “What will this government do to get adequate dialysis care for fly-in First Nations?” — “What is this government doing to ensure that first-time homebuyers can actually get into new homes?”
READ THE TRANSCRIPT. WATCH THE RECAP.
LOBBYING DISPATCH
Here are the new, renewed and amended registrations over the past 24 hours:
Amir Remtulla, Amir Remtulla: First Mining Gold Corp.
Trisha Rinneard, Wellington Advocacy: Canadian Mental Health Association
Rob Leone, Earnscliffe Strategy Group: House of Friendship, Dynacare
Laura Greer, Hill+Knowlton Strategies: Ontario Association of Veterinary Technicians
Caroline Pinto, Devan Sommerville and Shawn Cruz, Counsel Public Affairs: CNIB Foundation
Joanna Carey, Magnet Strategy Group: Merck Canada
David Angus, The Capital Hill Group: BMC Software, Hewlett-Packard
In-house organizations: Yves Landry Foundation — Technation Canada.
🥳 HAPPY BIRTHDAY: PC MPP DAVE SMITH (Peterborough—Kawartha)…BELATED: MEAGHAN MARTIN, tour and planning director to the Labour Minister.
⌛ COUNTDOWN: T-minus 7 days until the Liberal Party convention…20 days until the byelection in Hamilton Centre…27 days until the budget drops…122 days until Toronto’s mayoral byelection.