Ontario Liberal interim leader says nomination was fair, despite candidate's comments

Liberal MPP John Fraser attends Question Period at Queen's Park in Toronto on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

The interim leader of the Ontario Liberal Party says a nomination race this weekend to select a byelection candidate was fair, open and transparent, despite suspicion being raised by Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith.

Erskine-Smith was vying to represent the provincial party in the upcoming Scarborough Southwest byelection ahead of an intended bid for the leadership of the party.

But he lost Saturday to Ahsanul Hafiz by a slim margin, and cast doubt on the process after the results were announced.

Erskine-Smith said there were voter ID issues and he is raising the possibility of challenging the result.

Interim party leader John Fraser says today that the process was fair, and that if someone is saying otherwise, they should “prove it.”

Erskine-Smith represents the neighbouring riding of Beaches-East York federally, and some of his fellow nomination candidates bristled at what they saw as a candidate trying to use their community as a springboard for the leadership, with Hafiz and Qadira Jackson agreeing to put each other second on the nomination race’s ranked ballots.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2026.