Will Joe Volpe follow in Borys Wrzesnewskyj's footsteps in Eglington-Lawrence?

Former Etobocoke-Centre Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj has won headlines for his legal challenge to force a by-election due to election irregularities, and it appears another former Liberal MP, Joe Volpe, may be considering following suit.

Wrzesnewskyj won an Ontario Superior Court ruling ordering a new election in the riding after irregularities that put the narrow victory of Conservative Ted Opitz in doubt. The Supreme Court of Canada is scheduled to hear Opitz's appeal in a rare summer sitting next month, but I'm told his appeal has raised little in the way of new arguments or specific faults with the lower court judgement.

Across town in Eglington-Lawrence, former Liberal MP Joe Volpe's loss was a fair bit wider than Wrzesnewskyj's, finishing over 4,000 votes behind Conservative Joe Oliver. But in a recent e-mail to Liberals, Volpe indicated he is also investigating alleged irregularities with the results.

...during the election, our campaign in Eglinton-Lawrence was the first to raise the warning flags associated will illegal suppression tactics: misleading, harassing phone calls; thousands of instant voters registered with bogus info; robocalls; and abusive scrutineers who turned away elderly voters at polling stations. Elections Canada has been slow to address the issues we raised more than a year ago.

Our riding association is exhausting its resources to investigate and find answers. To help, we have set up a fund to continue that effort, and I ask for your consideration in making a contribution to the riding association to assist in that effort. 

It's not entirely clear to me if these efforts are expected to lead to a legal challenge or what form the investigation or a challenge may take. It may just be a cleverly worded riding association fundraising pitch. I've heard concerns raised in a number of Toronto-area ridings about the conduct of the last election and while Wrzesnewskyj lost by 26 votes, Volpe would have a far harder road ahead of him. A by-election seems highly unlikely, but certainly any possible improprieties deserve to be investigated and the situation in Eglington-Lawrence will bear watching.

Oh, and for those advocating for high spending limits in the upcoming Liberal leadership race, Volpe's e-mail also included a separate request for donations to help retire his leadership debt. From 2006.

P.S. In this video I shot last week at his nomination meeting, Wrzesnewskyj discusses his legal challenge and why the probably upcoming by-election is so important.

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Borys Wrzesnewskyj: This election is about fixing the system

On Tuesday evening I attended the nomination meeting for Borys Wrzesnewskyj as the Liberal candidate in Etobicoke-Centre where, if an Ontario Superior Court ruling holds, a by-election will be held due to irregularities uncovered in the voting in 2011 that, given the small margin of victory of Conservative Ted Opitz, put the actual result of the election into doubt.

It was a packed room as they say, although it was also a particularly small room. But Wrzesnewskyj said it was important to him that the meeting be held at the St. Demetrius Seniors Residence, because it was here during the election that many seniors lost their right to vote. According to affidavits filed by Elections Canada officials that worked the poll that day, a Conservative representative disrupted the voting and "suddenly started screaming and waving his arms wildly ... He was raging in a bullying fashion, which caused confusion, and frightened many voters."

Wrzesnewskyj spoke passionately and at length about the importance of making sure everyone has the right and opportunity to vote, and how that’s a right that shouldn’t be denied. It’s clear he intends to make faith in the democratic process a key campaign theme, referencing incidents not just in Etobicoke-Centre but across the country. When he knocks on doors, he says it’s all people want to talk about.

I spoke with him after the meeting for a quick video interview, where he expanded on these issues. Here’s a key quote:

“This election is about fixing the system, and hopefully fixing it before the next federal election. Because this cannot happen again in Canada.”

The passion and emotion Wrzesnewskyj has for this (he has funded the appeals process himself) as a matter of principle is clear, and it was definitely shared by the seniors that packed the room. I do hope that once on the trail he’ll broaden the message to also speak to other policy issues, and I’m sure he will. It’s sure to be a hard-fought race, possibly as tight as the 26-vote margin we saw in 2011.

In the interim, all eyes are on the Supreme Court to see if they’ll take the case and, if so, when.

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