The Weekly Writ for July 20

Patrick Brown goes to city hall, another Green leadership controversy and a patronage machine gets whirring in Manitoba

Welcome to the Weekly Writ, a round-up of the latest federal and provincial polls, election news and political history that lands in your inbox every Wednesday morning.

It’s been a busy summer so far. When July and August comes around, politics is supposed to go on a summer hiatus of its own. Instead, we have leadership races taking place from the Atlantic to the Pacific and lots of pre-election maneuvering ahead of a provincial election in Quebec and municipal elections in most other provinces across the country.

So, lots to get to in the Weekly Writ this week. We’ll start with a peek at some municipal races that do have some national political implications before moving on to news from the Ontario NDP and federal Green leadership contests.

Then, we have a few new polls, a riding profile in northwestern Quebec and the story of a Manitoba election held over a century ago.

IN THE NEWS

Brown, Dhaliwal opt for City Hall

Back to Brampton for Patrick Brown, who announced this week he’ll be running for re-election as mayor after being ousted from the Conservative leadership race.

Considering how quickly he made the pivot, it does make you wonder what he would have done had he not been ejected from the leadership race.

In any case, Brown has said his focus will now be on the mayoralty, though his legal dispute with the Conservative Party will still be going ahead. Brown faces his own controversy in Brampton City Hall, with allegations of financial irregularities (that Brown denies).

Brampton might be better known as a suburb of the Greater Toronto Area, but it is a huge city in its own right. According to the most recent census, Brampton is home to over 650,000 people, making it the ninth largest municipality in the country.

The same could be said of the Greater Vancouver region’s Surrey, which ranks 11th on the list with nearly 570,000 residents.

The mayoral race is heating up in this B.C. Lower Mainland city. The incumbent, Doug McCallum, is hoping to be re-elected but faces some challengers with high name recognition, including former MP and current B.C. NDP MLA Jinny Sims.

You can now add current Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal to that list.

Dhaliwal has been the Liberal candidate in the riding of Surrey–Newton (formerly Newton–North Delta) in every election since 2004. He was elected in 2006, re-elected in 2008, defeated in 2011 and has held the seat since he was elected again in 2015. He’ll be staying on as an MP while he runs for mayor and says he’ll step down if he wins the job.

The Writ will be giving some coverage to big municipal races across the country in the fall. With so many on the docket, I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a few provincial and federal politicians suddenly vacating their legislative seats. Byelection season will shortly follow!

Ontario NDP leadership date set

The Ontario NDP, fresh off a disappointing election result, have set the date for the party’s first leadership race since 2009.