'Lack of transparency' from federal Conservatives leads riding president in N.B. to quit
Leslie Keirstead apologizes to candidates who worked over a year on campaigns for nomination
With a federal election call expected soon and a Liberal incumbent certainly running for a fourth term in Saint John-Kennebecasis, some Conservatives in the riding are keen to get cracking on their own campaign — if only they could.
But the national party is standing in the way, refusing to set a nomination meeting date and to dispel rumours that the party brass has already identified the nominee it wants to run, according to a resignation letter submitted by riding president Leslie Keirstead.
"I have asked the National Party staff, on numerous occasions, to clarify their intentions but they have been unwilling to share that information with me," Keirstead wrote in a letter to the board directors.
Keirstead said that "lack of transparency" meant the nomination process was not the open and fair process she had hoped it would be, and she apologized to the candidates who had been campaigning for over a year.
One candidate gave up race
The three nominees who are openly campaigning for the job are Melissa Young, Lisa Keenan and James Robertson.
A fourth candidate, Dr. Jeff Steeves, quit the race last summer, after he thought he had received the party's blessing and had been signing up new members. He told his supporters he'd learned the national party preferred a candidate, who he said was living in Ontario.
"Despite my protest to the upper levels of the party, it has been made clear that my path to the nomination has ended," Steeves wrote in a letter dated July 23 and distributed widely to constituents.
Steeves did not name the chosen candidate.
Robertson, who did not return messages but does have a campaign website, is described as having a 15-year military career and an MBA. He says he now resides in Quispamsis and volunteers on projects related to youth leadership and relieving child poverty.
Young, who would not provide an interview to CBC News, but also maintains a campaign website, is described as a champion for skilled trades. She was appointed CEO of Skilled Trades Ontario in January 2022 and served in that position until she was replaced in November 2024.
Young says she is a lifelong resident of New Brunswick, currently living along the Kennebecasis River.
Keenan's resume includes ties to the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick and the federal Conservative party dating back to 1993. A practising lawyer, she also served on a variety of boards, including the Saint John Port Authority.
Keenan, the only candidate who agreed to an interview, said she would continue her campaign, and she defended Keirstead's role as riding leader.
"Leslie Keirstead has been a tireless worker for the federal party and the provincial party for the last 30-something years, and I think the riding association has conducted itself impeccably for the last year in connection to a possible nomination."
The party is not breaking its own rules by not having a nomination meeting nor one scheduled.
Local board director Nargis Kheraj said that only the national party can sign off on a nomination date. It can't be done locally.
Kheraj said she'd like to see a Conservative candidate in place so that person has time to campaign and establish what they stand for, especially if they're facing Liberal incumbent Wayne Long, who was first elected in 2015.
"I think our party in Saint John is a little frustrated because we want to get this going," Kheraj said.
"We have an existing MP, and we want to make sure that our candidate gets some exposure, and we can't do that unless we have a candidate, and we can't have a candidate because we don't have a nomination."
CBC was unable to reach party officials in Ottawa. Messages left for Kevin Price, the New Brunswick representative on the Conservative National Council, went unanswered.
Emil Olsen, a federal Conservative stalwart and Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick riding president in Quispamsis, said he still fully expects a riding vote to take place, although he said he'd not yet heard of a date being set.
"I'm expecting a nomination meeting," said Olsen. "Everybody should have the opportunity to vote for the person they're supporting. I can't see it not happening. That's the democratic process."
Long says he does not expect to face a nomination contest because of his long incumbency. Furthermore, no other candidate has stepped forward.
Federal race tightens
Poll analyst Eric Grenier said Saint John-Kennebecasis is a riding to watch and the choice of local candidate could make a difference on election day.
He says nationally, the Conservatives had been leading in the polls for about a year and a half, but over the past two months, the gap between the Liberals and the Conservatives has shrunk by half and could be affected yet again by Mark Carney's leadership win.
"Atlantic Canada has seen a huge change in the polling," Grenier said. "The Conservatives were on track to win Saint John-Kennebecasis and lots of ridings across New Brunswick," he said.
"Now we've seen the Liberals have actually moved ahead in Atlantic Canada by a pretty significant margin. So a riding like Saint John-Kennebecais would now be a toss-up.
"So who the local candidate is going to end up being could end up playing a huge role in Atlantic Canada. We do see the local candidates having a bigger impact on the race than we see in the rest of Canada."
Few nominations competitive, charity finds
Researchers at the Samara Centre for Democracy say contested nominations are uncommon.
The non-partisan registered charity examined how candidates were chosen for Canada's five major federal parties across five federal elections between 2004 and 2015.
Of the 6,600 federal candidates captured in the study, only 17 per cent arrived there through a competitive nomination race. Parties directly appointed more than 2,700 election candidates with no nomination process at all.
"It's hard to even call them contests in many ways," said research director Beatrice Wayne.
"Many people are acclaimed, appointed by the party leader and in many so-called contests there's only one contestant running. So it's hardly accurate to call it a contest. We found in our analysis of races from 2004 to 2015 that 70 per cent of contests were just one person running and that is in addition to the people who are appointed by party leaders."
Wayne says members of parliament who gave interviews to the centre expressed frustration about the lack of information around the timing of nomination contests.
"One thing that's very interesting in terms of diversity, we know that the longer the nomination contest runs for, the more likely there will be women running in the nomination contest," Wayne said.
"But nomination contests are very short. Often, even though they are supposed to be at least two weeks, they're shorter. So this is not helpful in terms of achieving a more representative House of Commons."
In Saint John-Kennebecasis, David MacFarquhar is running for the Green Party. The NDP does not have a candidate yet.
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