Nathaniel Erskine-Smith has worn a target on his back for the last several months. Now a new frontrunner will be under attack and the Ford team is already working hard to build attack ads against whomever wins the race.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 18, 2026.

OTTAWA—The leaderless Ontario Liberal Party is currently polling ahead of Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives.

That is tough news for the provincial government, but even tougher news for the Ontario New Democratic Party. The Liberals have landed in third place in the last two elections with NDP leader Marit Stiles performing well in the legislature as the leader of the official opposition.

One election loss was considered a fluke. Two elections is a trend. So the prevailing wisdom was that the NDP would replace the Liberals as the government in waiting.

But for many reasons, that has not happened. Instead, the Liberal brand is holding steady in Canada’s most populous province, and even without a leader, looks poised to potentially form government.

Ford’s stumbles have been rare, but the latest reversal of his decision to purchase a $29-million jet to travel to Timmins and the north seems to have caught voters’ attention.

The explanation of the plane purchase was dubious as the premier claimed that he would use it to move more efficiently across the province and get more work done.

The runway length required by the Bombardier Challenger 650 meant the plane could only land in 19 of the province’s 179 operational airports.

The purchase reversal came quickly, with Ford’s usual statement that he was simply listening to the voters, but the fiasco hurt. The Liberals quickly shot two points ahead in the polls.

And then a Liberal leadership candidate shot himself in the foot.

In a pitched nomination battle, Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith lost the race in Scarborough-Southwest by 19 votes to Ahsanal Hafiz.

Erskine-Smith took a huge chance in running in a riding across town from the seat he currently holds in the House of Commons. He has been elected in Beaches-East York since 2015, and announced last week he would be stepping down at the end of the session.

Had he followed the example of NDP Leader Avi Lewis, he would have waited for a seat that was much safer, but Erskine-Smith has always been a risk-taker.

He plans to contest the nomination results, which saw more than 1,000 members ruled ineligible to vote. But he has also said the outcome has forced him to reconsider his ambitions.

Only one current sitting provincial member has announced her intention to run for the Liberal leadership race which has been called for November.

Last week, Ontario MPP Lee Fairclough announced her candidacy. The rookie MPP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore was a surprise victor in Ford’s home area in the last election, and has a deep background in medicine, including managing a hospital during COVID.

In her youth, she was a member of Canada’s national women’s rugby team, so she knows how to fight.

Fairclough already has the support of three senior Liberals: MPP’s Lucille Collard, Ted Hsu, and former deputy leader Deb Matthews. She is the only current MPP who has declared her candidacy although Ajax MPP Rob Cerjanec has been actively organizing behind the scenes.

Other names being bandied about include Navdeep Bains, a former minister in the federal government with strong organizational ability. It is widely believed within the Ontario Liberal Party that Bains is one of the two people, along with Erskine-Smith, who organized an active campaign to damage former leader Bonnie Crombie at the leadership review convention last fall.

Lacklustre support prompted Crombie to step down back in January, citing the new year as a chance for new beginnings.

Some believed she should have had another shot at electoral victory, and they blame Erskine-Smith and Bains for her exit.

Until the weekend, Erskine-Smith was widely viewed as the frontrunner in the leadership.

But the Scarborough nomination battle was filled with acrimony, with last week’s defeat capping off a month of negative headlines for Erskine-Smith.

He questioned the results, and blamed party brass for smoothing the way for his opponent. But he also faced criticism for a last-minute endorsement from Prime Minister Mark Carney that ruffled local feathers.

Even leaderless, the provincial Liberals are ahead. But once a leader is chosen, that could quickly change.

A frontrunner starts with a target on their back. Erskine-Smith has worn that target for the last several months. Now a new frontrunner will be under attack. Candidates for the Ontario Liberal leadership must enter the race before July 31.

The Ford team is already working hard to build attack ads against whomever wins the race.

Bains has experience, but that comes with baggage. Cerjanec and Fairclough have no experience. In politics, that could actually work in their favour.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Quebec Conservatives are now privately speaking out against their leader to the media. Whether these MPs are worried enough to organize their delegations to get to Calgary in January remains to be seen.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on October 27, 2025.

OTTAWA—Pierre Poilievre cannot pivot.

The official opposition leader’s attack on the RCMP left his own party members shaking their heads.

His claim that the scandals of the previous Justin Trudeau government should have resulted in jail time has raised many eyebrows. It prompted Dimitri Soudas, who was once the communications director to then-Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, to publicly question Poilievre’s leadership capability.

In a Toronto Star op-ed on Oct. 22, Soudas didn’t pull any punches. “Leader Pierre Poilievre is dismantling the principled, serious and credible Conservative Party Harper worked so hard to lead and bring to power, one of substance, maturity and integrity. …In a rule of law democracy, no opposition leader should ever call for a prime minister or any political rival to be jailed. It undermines confidence in our justice system, our federal police and ultimately the Crown.”

Harper dissociated himself with a statement posted on X from the chief of staff at his consultancy, Harper and Associates. Anna Tomala posted on Oct. 17 that “Mr. Soudas does not speak for Mr. Harper.”

But that denial did not stop the rumour mill from churning overtime.

Harper’s refusal to personally denounce the Soudas op-ed has left some observers wondering where he really stands.

CBC/Radio-Canada carried a story that five members of the Conservative caucus had confirmed privately that they were unhappy with Poilievre’s performance since the election. None of the members would be publicly identified, but four who had supported Poilievre before told Radio-Canada they were rethinking their support.

The controversy has raised questions about the level of opposition the Conservative leader will face at his leadership review in January 2026.

Most pundits have been predicting it will be an easy ride, with the date and the Calgary, Alta., location a definite plus for the leader who now represents an Alberta riding.

Soudas’ background is in Quebec, and if there is a real anti-Poilievre movement percolating there, it could definitely upend the current predictions on Poilievre’s party popularity.

Quebecers like winners. And if they think Poilievre is not prime minister material, they will definitely look elsewhere.

Publicly, caucus members were supportive of the leader when entering the weekly meeting last Wednesday.

But public support doesn’t necessarily mean that they are privately positive.

Outgoing Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie had the unanimous public support of her caucus going into her leadership review this past September. But even as members were visibly rallying behind her, some of the same people were privately campaigning to unseat her.

In Crombie’s case, she was also facing vigorous opposition by others who wish to replace her, including Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith.

They were signing up their own delegates to the Ontario Liberal convention in Toronto, hoping to force Crombie out after a weak vote of support.

Crombie did not crack the 60-per-cent mark, and when the final number was tallied, only 57 per cent of the party membership at the convention supported her leadership.

Crombie resigned. She has recently been privately polling members to see whether she should re-enter the next leadership race, but that would be a very unlikely reversal of fortunes.

In Poilievre’s case, it would take a huge effort in Eastern Canada to unseat him because his support in Alberta and Saskatchewan is so deep.

It’s even been speculated that his attack on Trudeau and the RCMP was a strategy designed to increase support among the right wing of the party that prefers a Donald Trump-like approach to politics.

Some even described Poilievre’s intervention as Trumpian, because the American president is constantly ruminating about sending his opponents to jail. Trump is now asking the justice department to refund his US$230-million legal bill via an administrative claims process.

Unlike supporters of other parties, there is a significant minority in the Conservative Party that think Trump is doing a good job.

So, anything that mimics his approach will actually get Poilievre some internal support.

But it comes at the risk of losing the rest of the country. That is why some Quebec Conservatives are now privately speaking out against their leader to the media.

Whether these members are worried enough to organize their delegations to get to Calgary in January remains to be seen.

Poilievre’s gaffe last week will not be enough to unseat him. But public spats with senior party members in the months leading up to the vote are not a good sign.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

It is also worth spending some money explaining to Canadians just what is involved in the fight on climate change. 

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on March 25, 2024.

OTTAWA–The World Meteorological Organization had grim news for the globe last week.

In every climate indicator, temperatures were the highest on record in 2023.

And for the past nine years in a row, the planet has been getting hotter.

For the first time ever, Canada’s air quality was worse than the United States, largely because of the effect of massive wildfires across the country.

Evidence is mounting for all but the most obtuse that action needs to be taken to reverse the climate crisis. Zombie fires that started last year are still continuing in parts of British Columbia. New wildfires are starting at an unbelievably early time of the year with 90 fires burning there last week.

But the man who would be prime minister, Pierre Poilievre, is running advertisements attacking British Columbia Premier David Eby because he refuses to pile in with other premiers who are attacking the April increase in the price on carbon established by the federal government.

Instead of focusing on climate solutions, Poilievre is trying to bully provinces into reversing the federal action plan to reduce our carbon footprint.

Politicians should be focused on climate solutions instead of reversing our work on climate action.

Eby was not one to be bullied. British Columbia, arguably Canada’s greenest province, was the first to adopt a price on carbon. That happened a decade before the federal government introduced its 2018 plan.

The B.C. experience has been used as a model for other jurisdictions. Their carbon pricing has had a beneficial impact on the environment with little impact on the economy.

Eby characterized Poilievre’s “axe the tax” as a “baloney office” campaign. Poilievre responded by accusing Eby of forcing British Columbians to eat baloney because of carbon pricing.

What nobody seems to be including in the discussion is how the country will fight forest fires and floods by abolishing the national climate action strategy.

Poilievre has put nothing in the window in his axe campaign, and is deliberately conflating a world inflationary trend with a made-in-Canada carbon plan.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made it very clear that the government has no intention to reverse its climate plan, even after Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Premier Andrew Furey joined six Conservative premiers in his request to cancel the proposed carbon price hike.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has vowed not to collect the carbon price, which could prove rather costly to his residents.

In the national plan, carbon rebates actually go out to approximately 80 per cent of the population based on their reduced carbon footprint.

If Moe refuses to collect, the average family of four in his province will miss out on an annual rebate of $1,800 according to the federal Department of Finance.

Trudeau is committed to the federal action plan, and vows to keep fighting for pollution pricing, despite the claim by Ontario Premier Doug Ford that the federal Liberals could be “annihilated” in the next election because of the pricing policy.

Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie last week distanced herself from her federal counterparts by saying if she were elected, her party would not impose a provincial tax.

The party could fall back on the federal program, but has not committed to doing so as an internal committee studies the issue.

Suffice to say, across the board, the country is gripped with the issue of climate pricing and nobody is particularly engaged in the challenge of doing nothing.

Poilievre is framing the issue as another Liberal gas tax, and spending millions of dollars to get Canadians on his side.

Meanwhile, the federal government has spent nothing in explaining to Canadians what is actually involved in carbon pricing, and why it is so necessary to help the country fight climate change.

At a heated press conference in Calgary recently, Trudeau said it was not his job to be popular when pressed on whether he should ditch the carbon tax.

But to win elections, and carry out his climate plans, he does need to secure the popular vote.

His climate plan is worth fighting for. It is also worth spending some money explaining to Canadians just what is involved in the fight on climate change.

If the country wants to hang on to the progress we have made on climate change, we need to increase the price on carbon so consumption patterns will change.

We are experiencing the hottest decade in history and we owe it to our grandchildren to push ahead on carbon pricing.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on November 13, 2023.

OTTAWA—The Ontario Liberal Party race went nuclear last week.

Just after a spirited candidates’ debate in Ottawa, two campaign teams announced they were joining forces in an attempt to beat front-runner, former Liberal MP and Mississauga Mayor, Bonnie Crombie.

Former Ontario Attorney-General and now Liberal MP Yasir Naqvi joined forces with fellow federal Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith in an attempt to deliver a one-two punch to Crombie.

On Nov. 9, just two weeks before voting begins, the pair held a press conference in front of Queen’s Park to deliver their message.

Each is calling upon his supporters to choose the other as their second choice in the single-person ranked ballot system. Both MPs believe they have much in common, and that either would make a better choice to beat Premier Doug Ford than Crombie.

Their agreement announcement said that the “Ontario Liberals will be best positioned to beat Doug Ford by electing a principled, pragmatic and Liberal leader.”

The statement about a “Liberal leader” was designed to remind prospective voters about an early error in the Crombie campaign, when the candidate said she would open up certain areas of the environmentally protected Greenbelt to developers. Crombie has since recanted that position, and promised to leave the protected areas untouched.

But throughout the lengthy campaign, opponents have attempted to portray the front-runner as Ford lite, noting that some of the same developers who are supporting her mayoralty race have also donated to Ford.

The Naqvi and Erskine-Smith’s statement characterized Crombie (without naming her) as “leadership … vulnerable to the same criticisms as the Ford Conservatives—their political baggage, priorities and donors.”

One other candidate has already left the race. Adil Shamji, a provincial Liberal MPP and former physician, threw his support behind Crombie.

A fourth candidate, Ted Hsu, is the only one who currently sits in the provincial legislature. He said on social media that he was approached about the deal, but turned it down because he believes members should have free votes and the party should be beyond deal-making.

For her party, Crombie said she was hoping to be Liberals’ first choice because she has the fundraising and organization skills to help the party win in 2026. She was turning the fundraising questions into a positive as the party is currently in third place in the legislature, and needs cash to be competitive in the next election.

Crombie has already raised more than double the amount of money donated to the combined campaigns of Naqvi and Erskine-Smith.

Full disclosure: I have publicly supported Crombie as leader. The move to join forces was not unexpected. Most leadership campaigns evolve into an anybody-but-the-frontrunner towards the end of the race. The election that saw Stéphane Dion become federal Liberal Party leader was an ‘anybody-but’ movement. In that leadership it was anybody but Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff, the two front-runners.

Negative karma drove a lot of voters into the arms of Gerard Kennedy and Dion. Dion started the race with only 16 per cent of the vote, but he ended up winning by making a deal with Gerard Kennedy for support.

Deals are usually made quietly in the background. Last week’s announcement was intended to garner maximum media attention.

The public strategy is risky for Naqvi and Erskine-Smith as too much internal fighting could cost them politically. Some Liberals won’t appreciate the attacks on Crombie’s weaknesses, and others may not like being told how to vote. The public nature of the deal may hurt both candidates’ future if Crombie does win.

But in one sense, it was a risk they had to take. As the sale of new memberships is now over, all the candidates have a pretty good handle on their standing in the pack.

And it is highly likely that Crombie is outpacing all of them by a good margin. Last week’s coalition was a do-or-die move for both men. It may not deliver them the leadership, but doing nothing would be equally costly.

If Crombie has enough support to win a majority of votes on the first counting of the ballots, it is a moot point.

If not, the ranking of candidates does have an impact as this will be a vote by all in a preferential ballot. Once the first vote is counted, the candidate with the fewest supporters drops off, and voters’ choices for second and third are then reallocated for a second count.

This Liberal duo is counting on ranked ballots to take one of them over the top.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

But at the end of the day, the bulk of the blame will be borne by the federal government.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 13, 2022.

OTTAWA—To mask or not to mask. That is the question.

As the provinces move to end requirements for wearing masks in public places, the federal government continues to insist that COVID rules will not be loosened.

As passengers return to air travel, they are continuing to experience massive delays, the blame for which is falling directly on the shoulders of the government.

The chaos at Pearson International Airport is so bad that a former National Hockey Leaguer has dubbed the airport “the worst place on Earth.”

Ryan Whitney, who hosts a popular podcast, tweeted about Pearson after taking 30 hours to complete an Air Canada flight from Edmonton to Boston.

One video showed Whitney waiting for six hours to rebook a cancelled flight only to be turned away. His documented video went viral with more than one million views.

Upon arriving home in Boston, Whitney declined media requests but posted his final unmistakeable global rebuke: “God bless anyone who ever has to step foot in that hellhole.”

Air Canada, and the airport, are blaming delays on federally required pandemic related tests and mandatory vaccination questionnaires.

Frustration has reached such a point that pro-Liberal Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie has been on the news calling the situation “completely unacceptable. It is not how we want to be viewed by the rest of the world. … Tourism season is on us. We need to get this fixed!”

Finger-pointing will continue between governments, the airport management, the airlines, and national regulatory authorities like the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, which is responsible for all screening.

But at the end of the day, the bulk of the blame will be borne by the federal government.

As the summer season looms, the last thing anyone wants is chaos at Canada’s largest airport.

Fifty countries around the world have already decided to drop their COVID airport screening requirements.

But instead of following their lead, the federal government is continuing to require lengthy screening processes, notwithstanding the request by everyone in the airline business to ease up on COVID processes.

“This is not the face we want to show the world,” Crombie told CTV news in a wide-ranging interview explaining how Pearson’s problems are affecting business and tourism in the region.

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra has been working double overtime, trying to ensure that security and airport screening hires are made and trained quickly.

Agencies involved in the hirings have even allowed employees in training to go right to the frontlines of work at the airport.

The transport minister announced the hiring of 865 more screening employees, who must go through training before they are fully operational.

Alghabra’s hands are tied on the health front, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated last week that science dictates a requirement for airport rules should remain in place.

He reminded Canadians we are still experiencing the pandemic. Travel rules will remain in place until at least Canada Day.

Alghabra has to simply keep reassuring stranded travellers that his department is working hard to fix the problem.

Non-travellers are not worried about lineups, but for those trying to get back to pre-COVID business normalcy, the delays are damaging.

With such a large contingent of GTA Liberals, it is hard to see a solution to the political pressure they must be feeling.

Passport delays are further adding to travel grief, with long lineups reported at many offices across the country.

Add the Pearson mess to dismal provincial Liberal results in the Ontario election, and members going home for the summer will be getting an earful from their constituents.

Most Canadians are not personally invested when government programs face glitches.

But when it comes to travel, every single Canadian who intends to leave the country needs a passport.

Likewise, tourism operators who have been starving during COVID are hoping to see a springboard to normalcy this summer.

But with all the bad news on Pearson going global, many foreign travellers may think twice before making Canada their chosen destination.

One answer would be to end COVID screening requirements on all flights.

There is no doubt that certain health risks are attached to those measures, but with provincial governments de-masking most activities in their provinces, the danger of going into a crowded restaurant is probably equivalent to passenger travel risk on planes.

Medical professionals may not be happy with the de-masking requirements, but the general population is ready to embrace the new normal.

After more than two years in lockdown, people want to be free.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.