Nomination battle heating up in area riding Conservatives have held for 19 years

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Candidates are already lining up to seek the Conservative nomination in Oxford, one of the safest Tory seats in Southwestern Ontario, where veteran MP Dave MacKenzie will retire this month.

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MacKenzie, a Woodstock resident and the city’s former police chief, announced last month he would complete his 19-year tenure as Conservative MP for Oxford on Jan. 28. At least four people, including Deb Tait, his daughter and longtime Woodstock city-county councillor, say they will run for the nomination.

The others are Arpan Khanna, the party’s outreach chair who ran unsuccessfully in the 2019 federal election for the Conservative seat in Brampton North; Rick Roth, vice-president of communications for Global Affairs Canada and former chief of staff to Ontario’s minister of environment, conservation and parks; and Gerrit Van Dorland, an executive assistant to Saskatchewan Conservative MP Jeremy Patzer.

Tait, a two-term Woodstock councillor and four-term city-county councillor, questions whether out-of-town candidates such as Khanna and Roth have ties to the riding and can best represent constituents.

“I was surprised that two people who don’t live in the riding were going to try and run in Oxford,” she said. “It is a safe Conservative riding … But I do think it’s very difficult for parachute candidates.”

Added Tait: “In rural and small communities, we know everybody. We understand what our concerns are. They may not be the same as (someone in) Toronto or Hamilton.”

MacKenzie won by landslide in the 2021 federal election, with 47.4 per cent of the vote. The Conservatives have held the Oxford seat for more than 60 of the 88 years the riding has existed.

Khanna, expected to make a formal announcement about his candidacy this week, fired back at Tait’s concerns, saying he’s been met with “immense support” from constituents while campaigning in the riding.

“Folks are getting behind our campaign. The nomination race is an open nomination race. It’s going to speak for itself,” he said.

None of the four individuals seeking the Conservative nomination in Oxford have been approved by the party. Candidates typically go through a screening process before their name can appear on the nomination ballot.

Nomination contestants must submit applications to the party that include a letter of intent to run in the riding and a petition form with at least 25 party members who are in good standing and live in the district, as per a document outlining the party’s rules and procedures for candidate nominations.

The Conservative Party’s Oxford riding association has not yet scheduled a nomination meeting ahead of a federal byelection that must be called six months after a riding becomes vacant. Members of the association declined to comment on the nomination process and the candidates, with one spokesperson describing it as an “internal party matter.”

A timeline for the applications and voting will not be scheduled until a closing notice has been issued. Only those who live in the riding and were registered as members of the Conservative party within two days of that closing notice are eligible to vote at the nomination meeting.

A Greater Toronto Area lawyer, Khanna said he recently moved to Woodstock and has many clients in the riding. He cited his various roles in government, including as a co-chair on Pierre Poilievre’s leadership campaign in Ontario, as experience that would help him in the position.

“After McKenzie did decide to resign, we see a lot of the needs and issues of our constituents are not being addressed … I have the tools necessary to be that strong advocate,” Khanna said.

Roth grew up in Tillsonburg and said he has family in the area. He sees his bid for the Conservative seat as an opportunity “to give back, and to represent the community.”

Roth said if he was nominated, he would move back to Oxford from Toronto, where he lives with his wife and two-year-old child. “It would be a priority for me,” he said. “To truly understand the local riding and the community, you need to be present.”

Home to the London region’s two auto assembly plants, Toyota’s Woodstock factory and General Motor’s Cami Assembly plant in Ingersoll, the largely rural Oxford riding has been held by the Tories since 2004 when MacKenzie was elected MP. It is also often touted as Ontario’s dairy capital.

With multiple people seeking the nomination, candidates agree the race will be competitive.

“That’s a good thing. Nomination races are about grassroots engagement and involvement,” said Van Dorland, a resident of the small Oxford County community of Otterville who said he’s throwing his hat into the ring to “stand up for what’s important to the residents of Oxford.”

“We have a number of strong candidates in the race,” he said. “It will be an exciting race we’ll see play out in the next few months.”

Voters in two other federal ridings — Winnipeg South Centre, where Liberal MP Jim Carr died on Dec. 12, and Calgary Heritage, where Conservative MP Bob Benzen resigned last month — will also head to the polls for byelections this year. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is likely to call all three byelections at the same time.

Calvi Leon is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter based at the London Free Press. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

cleon@postmedia.com

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