Toronto Star
May 10 2004
Anger as `stars’ oust Liberal hopefuls
PM’s sincerity in doubt, says one Party defends
appointments
GRAHAM FRASER
NATIONAL AFFAIRS WRITER
OTTAWA—Paul Martin’s designation of a Liberal candidate in Brampton
puts in doubt his sincerity, a would-be Liberal candidate said
yesterday.
“For me, it says to me they have a very difficult time keeping
promises,” Andrew Kania told the CTV program Question Period yesterday.
Kania said he had initially been told he could not run in Brampton
Springdale.
“Mr. Karl Littler, the Ontario campaign manager, specifically said
to me I would not be allowed to succeed in that riding because I was
John Manley’s Ontario co-chair,” he said.
“I appealed to the Prime Minister, I wrote to him, and he approved
me as a candidate.”
The approval did not last long: On Saturday, the Liberal party
announced that Ruby Dhalla, a chiropractor and long-time Liberal
activist, would be the party’s candidate.
The controversy has underlined the contradiction between Prime Minister
Paul Martin’s position earlier in the year and his recent actions,
and the tension between his constant complaints about a democratic
deficit in Parliament and his desire to name star candidates of
cabinet quality.
First, Martin insisted that the selection of candidates was a local
matter and refused to intervene in the fight between his defeated
rival Sheila Copps and Transport Minister Tony Valeri.
But he or his representatives have subsequently intervened several
times to block candidates who were seeking Liberal nominations,
and appoint candidates of his choosing.
Steve MacKinnon, deputy campaign director for the Liberal party, said
that the decision to appoint candidates involved putting together a
successful team for governing.
“Dr. Dhalla is a very successful entrepreneur in the Brampton area,
runs rehabilitation clinics and is a chiropractor and a very successful
businesswoman,” he said adding she was the first Sikh woman ever to
run for the Liberal party.
The Liberals also announced that the Liberal MP for Brampton-Centre,
Sarkis Assadourian, was being named special adviser to Martin for
Near Eastern and South Caucasus affairs.
Assadourian was one of the driving forces behind the recent
parliamentary vote to acknowledge the events that happened in Turkey
in 1917-1925 as the Armenian genocide — a free vote that challenged
the position of the government, and enraged the Turkish government.
Dhalla is one of a number of Liberal candidates to have been designated
by Martin, including former NDP British Columbia premier Ujjal Dosanjh.
On Friday, Martin named Bill Cunningham, president of the Liberal
party in British Columbia, as the candidate in Burnaby-Douglas,
enraging Tony Kuo, who had publicly pleaded with Martin not to do this.
Yesterday, Kuo called it a very sad day in Canadian politics.
“It symbolized the death of democracy within the Liberal Party in
Canada,” Kuo said.
“In particular, the Prime Minister chose power over democracy.”
He said that in five ridings, where Martin has designated candidates
and short-circuited the local candidate-selection process, members
of minorities cannot run and cannot vote.
“This is not the Liberal party (that) has taken the proud traditions
from (former prime ministers Lester) Pearson to (Pierre) Trudeau to
Jean Chrétien, multiculturalism, true Liberalism, and the belief (in)
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” Kuo said.
“It’s a very sad day.”
MacKinnon said the power of designation has only been used in six
constituencies across Canada out of 308, and that it was done to put
together what he called “a team that we think is unprecedented in
the history of the Liberal Party of Canada.”