• Grit riding associations ‘left out’

A pair of longtime Dartmouth Liberals say their riding associations were passed over in the selection of candidates.

“There seems to be somebody not telling the truth about how they are going about choosing candidates,” Emmett Austin said of the Dartmouth South debacle that had Liberal candidate Robyn Ingraham dropping out of the race last weekend less than 24 hours after posting on social media that she was running.

“There is a whole group of Liberals in Dartmouth here that have been left out,” said Austin, the former Liberal riding association president in Dartmouth South.

“They're workers and people who have raised money for years. I was campaign manager at one time, (association) president. We've been left out on this whole thing of candidate choice.

“They've (Liberal party) gone across the province and done this in a number of different ridings. You're either the Liberal party or you're the premier's party. If you want a party system, you talk to the executives. But they haven't been talking to executives for a long time.”

Austin said a riding association should be vetting candidates.

“It's just getting a lot of people upset about the way (Liberal Leader Iain) Rankin is running this thing and they seem to be vetting everything out of the premier's office with no consideration for ordinary Liberals, for people who have worked for the party for years.”

Rankin said at a campaign event Thursday that he had never met or spoken with Robyn Ingraham but that he understood from reading her initial social media post that she had willingly withdrawn her candidacy.

In a stinging indictment of the Liberal party delivered in a subsequent social media post Wednesday evening, Ingraham said she felt intimidated, patronized, lied to and angry after her brief affiliation with the party.

Ingraham said that she had been very open during the candidate vetting process about her story and time in front of photographers' lenses “taking boudoir photos alone and with my friends.”

She said she expressed herself through those photos on multiple online platforms.

After she was acclaimed, Ingraham said she got a call from her Liberal contact explaining that the photos of her had made the higher ups worried and uncomfortable.

Ingraham said she was texted two renditions of statements to provide about her stepping down.

Ingraham said she then regrettably posted a statement of lies attributing her withdrawal to mental illness.

Rankin said Friday that the party helped craft Ingraham's withdrawal statement but that she made the choice to step down.

“We're in a different society,” Austin said. “We lost contact with the whole thing, the premier's office and the campaign office walked away from us.”

As riding association president in the last election, Austin said he chaired a committee that sought and vetted potential candidates.

“I called 35 different people and interviewed four people and we came up with a candidate. That's how it's done.”

Austin conceded that the premier's office does have the right to choose a candidate.

Joseph Khoury, an English professor at St. Francis Xavier University who serves as Liberal party president, said the vast majority of candidates go through a nominating process.

“Some have been through a competition, a close competition,” Khoury said. “It's true that in some cases, and that happens in every election across the country, there are some ridings that don't have contested nominations simply because only one person decides to put their name forward.”

Khoury said he wouldn't comment on any specific riding but said “the party very much encourages contested nominations.”

Khoury dismissed Austin's contention that the Liberals had surrendered the Dartmouth South and North ridings that were held by New Democrat MLAS Claudia Chender and Susan Leblanc, both of whom are running again this time around.

“That is not the case,” Khoury said. “We contest all ridings. We have to. Elections are unpredictable. You don't know who's going to come in.”

Gary Newman, former president of the Dartmouth North Liberal riding association, said Pam Cooley was acclaimed as the Liberal candidate in much the same way as Ingraham.

“Only five people voted in the Dartmouth North nomination,” Newman said and he doesn't think any of them were association workers.

“This is getting a bit foolish,” Newman said of the Ingraham situation. “You'd think the leader of the party would meet with every candidate who's going to put their name forward.

"We don't even know why they let her go.”

Both Austin and Newman said they feel badly for Ingraham because of the way she was treated by the party.

“This lady might have been a fine candidate, but the executive had nothing to do with the choice,” Austin said.

He said it's a “slap in the face” to association workers and faithful to be left out of the process.

“Sure, maybe a lot of it is COVID but it seems to me that if you've got a party, you'd better talk to your people. When you stop doing that, you stop being a party.”