A potential candidate for the Ontario Liberal Party's leadership says it is time to strip parties of the power to run their own nomination contests and hand the job to Elections Ontario, arguing the current system erodes public trust.
Eric Lombardi, who has signalled interest in the race to succeed interim Leader John Fraser, made the comments in a social media statement Monday, responding to the fallout from a bitterly disputed nomination in Scarborough Southwest.
“I believe that Elections Ontario should be given the mandate to run nominations for official parties under existing voting rules (e.g., 18+, citizenship required),” Lombardi wrote on X. “This is a simple, common sense way to improve trust across parties.”
His intervention comes hours after the party's internal arbitration panel dismissed an appeal from Nate Erskine–Smith, who lost the May 9 nomination to Ahsanul Hafiz by just 19 votes. The panel's own ruling acknowledged that 1,523 ballots were cast, but only 1,489 names were crossed off the voters' list—leaving 14 ballots unaccounted for even after a post-hoc review.
Lombardi avoided directly criticizing the outcome or the party's handling of the appeal. He said he had been "reassured" that the contest was compliant with party rules and acknowledged that messy nominations are a long-standing feature of political life. “But, that doesn’t mean we should accept these standards, and learn nothing,” he added.
His proposal would represent a significant structural shift. Currently, parties design and administer their own nomination processes, setting their own rules for membership, voter identification, and dispute resolution.
Handing that authority to Ontario's independent election agency would impose standardized rules across all parties—including a minimum voting age of 18 and a citizenship requirement, rules that do not currently apply to internal party votes.
Lombardi also used the statement to address the human toll of the Scarborough Southwest saga, which has exposed deep rifts inside the party. “I know many good people on Team Nate who have made huge contributions to our party,” he wrote. “We should take their feelings of alienation very seriously.”
He urged Ontario Liberals to show personal forgiveness toward one another, warning that the party cannot present itself as a government-in-waiting "when we keep re-litigating the past."
The statement is the clearest sign yet that the Scarborough Southwest dispute is shaping the early dynamics of the party's pending leadership contest. While Lombardi stopped short of criticizing Fraser's leadership directly, his call for systemic reform implicitly challenges the OLP establishment's insistence that the nomination was handled properly.
Fraser has defended the nomination process, saying the party committed to an "open and transparent" contest and praising the arbitration panel's "speed and rigour." He has not addressed the 14 unexplained ballots or questions about candidate vetting that surfaced during the campaign.
Lombardi said he would advocate for the party to voluntarily align its nomination rules with provincial election standards until legislation can be passed.
“None of this has prioritized the people of Ontario,” he wrote. “We must be clear on giving Ontarians a future they can believe in.”
