Don Macpherson: The messy Liberal nomination fight in St-Laurent – Montreal Gazette

In a truly open contest, writes Don Macpherson, Yolande James would be at a disadvantage against Alan DeSousa. Pierre Obendrauf / Montreal Gazette

Nobody comes out ofthis weeks DeSousa affair looking good.

Start with Alan DeSousa himself, who sayshes a victim of character assassination in the federal Liberal partys mysterious refusal to allow him to seek its nomination for the April 3 by-election in the Montreal riding of St-Laurent.

Then theres Yolande James, the star candidate who has been made to look as though the party Establishment, which is reported to favour her for the nomination, doesnt believe she could beat DeSousa in a fair fight.

And last but not least theres Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose vauntednew style of politics has again been exposed as merely cosmetic.

In addition to participating in pay-for-access fundraising events, Trudeau has at least tolerated the repeated apparent rigging of theopen nominations of his partys candidates that he promised.

When he ran for the Liberal leadership in 2013, Trudeau promised that all the partys candidates would be chosen by votes of their constituents. Since he became leader, however, there have been several instances when would-be candidates complained that the party meddled in the nominating process before the vote.

For example, in the Toronto-area riding of Markham Thornhill, where another by-election will be held April 3, the party hastily and retroactively cut off registration for the vote after a member of Trudeaus staff became the first potential candidate to enter. This stopped other would-be candidates from registering their supporters.

In St-Laurent, the partys national candidate-vetting committee informed DeSousa this week that his name would not be on the ballot, for reasons that remain unexplained.

DeSousa has been borough mayor inSt-Laurent since 2001, and its public knowledge that in 2013, the boroughs offices were raided by UPAC, the provincial anti-corruption squad.

Four years later, however, DeSousa has not been charged with anything. And he told me he received encouragement to seek the nomination at all levels of the Liberal party, from the riding executive up to the prime ministers office.

That, however, was before James confirmed her decision to run.

DeSousa wasnt scared off by the prospect of having to face the former Quebec Liberal minister, whose potential candidacy had already been floated before DeSousa announced his.

James is an unproven campaigner, even though she was elected to the National Assembly four times. She was never seriously tested, since she ran in a safe Liberal riding, and her majorities were smaller than those of the previous Liberal MNA.

Still, James would be a lock to win the by-election in St-Laurent, which is such a safe ridingfor the Liberals that the real election thereis the one for theirnomination.

In a truly open contest, however, James wouldbe at a disadvantage against DeSousa.

Hes won several contested elections in his 31 years in localpolitics. And that suggests he could count on an established network in the riding to sign up supporters and get them to a nominating meeting.

James is from outside St-Laurent. And she brings some heavy political baggage with her.

In provincial politics, James was best known for campaigningagainst the niqab. As minister of immigration and cultural communities in the former Charest government,she was a leading supporter of proposedlegislation that would have denied public services to women wearing suchveils. And she had an immigrant woman expelled from a French course for refusingto remove her niqab.

In the three years since James left provincial politics, shesays her thinking has evolved. Coincidentally, St-Laurent was 17-per-cent Muslim at the 2011 census.

If James is such a weak candidate that she needs to be carried by the party to a nomination tainted by a backroom fix, then it would be better if Trudeau did what old-style leadershave always done. That is, he should name the candidate himself.

It would be no less democratic. Andit would be cleaner, and more honest.

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Don Macpherson: The messy Liberal nomination fight in St-Laurent - Montreal Gazette