An unexpected intervention by the federal NDP into the Davenport riding’s candidate election has left the local riding association and party members frustrated.
Just days before local members were set to crown the riding’s next NDP candidate, the federal party intervened, cancelling the vote.
“It undermines my trust in their capacity to take direction from members, which should be how the system works,” said Johanna Lewis, a local resident and new NDP member.
In Davenport, a pair of NDP nominees have been campaigning since October for the chance to defeat Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz, who won the 2021 election by a razor-thin 76 votes over her NDP competitor.
The NDP’s nomination campaign this winter pits Sandra Sousa, a data engineer and founder of the local activist group Davenport for Palestine, against Francisco Pegado, a local journalist and volunteer with environmental and community initiatives.
Both campaigns were disrupted late last week, however, by a federal party-level decision to cancel the nomination vote which had been scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 8.
“I'm very disappointed,” said Sousa, in a written statement to TorontoToday. “No information was provided as to why. We also weren't consulted in the decision.”
Vote cancelled over membership list ‘concerns’
“Both contestants for nomination in the NDP’s Davenport riding and the Party identified some issues with the membership lists,” said Lucy Watson, the federal NDP’s national director, in a statement to TorontoToday.
Watson said the vote was postponed in the “interests of fairness and transparency,” and that the issue is now being resolved.
Sousa said she was aware of membership list issues, but was still surprised by the cancellation decision.
“Despite some discrepancies that candidates were aware of with the membership list data, we were expecting that these issues would be resolved and a vote would proceed as agreed to,” she said.
Pegado told TorontoToday he believes both nominees raised concerns about the membership lists with the central party.
“My concerns were about members our team had signed up to the NDP who don't appear on the list of voters,” he said. “I am working with the federal party to address these concerns.”
During campaigns, nominees commonly canvass the neighborhood, encouraging residents to become a member of the political party. This entitles residents to vote at the nomination meeting, and puts them on the party’s membership list.
On Sunday, the federal NDP search committee overseeing candidate selection sent an email to local party members. They gave the same reason for the cancellation as Watson, citing concerns over membership lists. The search committee said they will be able to address the issues, but could not do so before the vote because they were identified last-minute.
That email followed one sent to some NDP members last Thursday and others last Friday, which announced the vote postponement.
Lewis, who became a party member to vote for Sousa, said the pair of federal NDP emails were “bizarre.”
“It didn’t really explain what was happening. It just said that because of last-minute questions and concerns they were postponing the vote,” Lewis said.
“They said to direct any questions to the [search committee] email address, which I did, and I have not heard back.”
Riding association surprised by cancellation
The postponement also caught members of the local riding association off-guard.
“This decision was not made by or in consultation with the Davenport NDP,” said local riding association president Corrigan Hammond in an interview with TorontoToday. “We've been working very hard to understand specifically why this decision was necessary.”
In the days since the federal party intervened in the process, Hammond took his concerns to a meeting with Watson, according to an email he sent to NDP members in the riding on Wednesday.
“We took the opportunity to express the frustration, confusion, and, yes, even anger, that so many of us are feeling right now about this abrupt intervention,” Hammond said in the email.
The riding association president told members the issues that caused the postponement are “technical in nature,” but offered no additional details.
Hammond said the federal party is not aware of any new candidates interested in entering the race, that there will only be two candidates, and that the new vote date will be set in collaboration with Pegado and Sousa.
The riding association has also told the federal party that voter eligibility for the forthcoming date should remain unchanged, according to the email.
“If you would have been eligible to vote on December 8, we want you to remain eligible to vote on the new date,” Hammond said in the email to members.
Tension between national and local parties is common
The federal intervention in Davenport came as no surprise to Alex Marland, an Acadia University politics professor who has studied candidate vetting processes.
It’s common to have tension between federal parties, which want to exert some level of control and standards, and their local constituency associations, which don’t want to be constrained, he said.
“These tensions bubble over sometimes.”
Marland said it’s possible the federal NDP intervened in an appropriate way to ensure the integrity of the vote. In other nomination contests, there have been concerns about candidates padding voting lists with non-residents of a riding to inflate their support.
Speaking generally, Marland said it’s also possible the federal party is concerned about the background or electability of one or both of the nominees, and is masking these worries with talk of membership lists.
In Canada, it’s federal parties, not local ridings, that largely dictate how nomination processes are run, he said.
A 2019 report by the Samara Centre for Democracy found that without Election Canada guardrails, nomination races are mostly managed by federal parties and lack transparency.
The charity analyzed how federal candidates for the Liberals, Conservatives, Greens, NDP and Bloc Québécois were chosen over five election cycles between 2004-2015.
It found that federal parties’ are not required to release details to their members about the number of votes cast in a nomination race or share information about contestants who were screened out from the competition by the party.
The report said there are times, such as during snap elections, when federal parties may need to more closely control the process. But otherwise, parties should run open, locally-controlled nominations.
Hope for vote to occur soon: Sousa
In a statement to TorontoToday, Sousa said she is hopeful the nomination vote will be held as soon as possible.
“Davenport residents are engaged and excited about a race to take on the Liberals, and many people are participating in a nomination campaign process for the first time,” she said.
“It is my hope that members will look back on this process and feel confident that there was a fair and democratic process.”
In his Wednesday email to party members, Hammond said he would like to see the nomination vote occur no later than February 15, 2024.
