Hi, everyone.

On Friday, the Premier of Ontario held a news conference and suggested the reason she didn’t want me as the Liberal candidate for the by-election is because we lost by 966 votes, stating that, in her opinion, we should have won Sudbury last June.
I have thick skin as you’ve all seen and I personally just let this roll off my back and dismissed it as a politician who is now simply grasping at anything she can to divert attention away from serious investigations. I’ve gotten used to it.
For the public and historical record, I will outline a few key reasons why we fell a bit short last Spring and it had nothing to do with me our team who should be VERY proud of what we accomplished.
However, I couldn’t stop thinking of all of my supporters — many of the hardworking people who volunteered on our campaign last year who I felt were personally insulted by the suggestion that our team was somehow to blame for not holding the Sudbury riding last June. And, I felt I should defend those people and give them a voice.
So, like the recordings, which I never wanted to release but was forced to after my good name was questioned — I am again being forced to set the record straight after the Premier’s misrepresentation of what happened last Spring during the general election.
Reason #1 - The Liberals were very unpopular in Sudbury before I became the candidate:
I decided in January 2014 that I was going to seek the nomination for the Liberal Party in Sudbury. At the time, the Ontario Liberals were not popular in Sudbury. After almost losing the 2011 election to a virtual unknown, Rick Bartolucci had announced he was retiring. Popular City Councillor Joe Cimino was already the NDP candidate and had been campaigning for months. Most people saw him as a shoe-in. The fact is that opinion polls had the Liberals in Sudbury trailing by 15% at that time, which was considered by many to be an insurmountable gap to overcome. This is why no high profile candidate came forward publicly to seek the nomination. It was just me and Elise Idnani, an engineer who also worked very hard and was a formidable opponent who earned the respect of me and my entire team. As for the lack of popularity of the Liberals in Sudbury at the time, I was used to insurmountable obstacles and have never been afraid of them. So, I dove in with everything I had. Now, anyone who has ever sought to win a nomination knows how hard it can be — in many cases, harder than the actual election. You have to sell memberships to the Party. The only people who can vote in the nomination meeting are people who have memberships. This is harder than it sounds, and all the more difficult when a party is lagging in popularity. Ask anyone who has tried to do it. You do it one membership form at a time. But, we plugged away. As you can imagine, with a serious disability, things take a bit more time so juggling this adventure and normal life would have been impossible. In light of all those odds, we sold memberships. We sold a lot of memberships.
Reason #2 - The Liberal Party knee-capped our campaign by waiting too late to hold a nomination meeting:
Despite knowing for 18 months that Mr. Bartolucci was not running, we waited and waited for the Ontario Liberal Party to call a nomination meeting as was reported in the local media. We couldn’t figure out why the Liberal Party was delaying. Both the NDP and Conservatives had their candidates in place and they were advertising, building profile in the community and getting a huge head start on whomever would become the Liberal candidate. It made no sense until it we were told through back channels that then-Mayor Marianne Matichuk wanted to be the candidate. Matichuk denied it in the media but as we now know from the in recorded conversation with Mr. Lougheed, she did in fact want to the Liberal candidate. But, it was suggested that Matichuk didn’t want to sell memberships. She wanted to be appointed or acclaimed. And, we were told the Premier was seriously considering appointing Matichuk. We pressured for democracy, and in the end, an appointment didn’t happen. We had our nomination meeting. But, by this time, it was too late. I became the candidate almost two weeks after the announcement that there would be an election. While my competitors had signs, offices, volunteers, raising money, etc — we were the last ones into the race that our own party started. It was clear we were working alone.
Reason #3 - We had almost no help from the Liberal Party during the actual campaign:
Remember. The polling had shown the Liberals were 15% back in Sudbury before I became the candidate. Shortly after I became the candidate, a new poll came out showing us 9% back. We were new to this. Setting up a campaign office took us a week. Even ordering signs was all new. We did an amazing job fundraising. There was no busload of young Liberals coming up to help us to canvass. With a little over a week remaining in the campaign, they sent us one Liberal staffer who was from Sudbury. She was fantastic — but only one person. That is it. We did it all on our own because the Party abandoned Sudbury, gave up on it. We climbed in the polls and on election night, we fell just 966 votes short of Joe Cimino who had 8 years on city council and a 9-month head start on campaigning. The fact is, the way we had momentum, if we had one more week, we would have won. I am positive of that. I have learnt that time was the only thing we needed from the Party we fought for.
I am writing this to defend all of you who were involved in our campaign — and there were many of you who gave countless days and nights without pay — who felt so very strongly in what we were trying to do in Sudbury. You deserve to be defended and I felt that the Premier’s statement attempted to smear the hard work of people who fought for her party last Spring. They were my team and they matter the most to me.
Our team was amazing. They worked so hard. We were all newcomers but an energetic, passionate group of Sudburians like none you have ever seen. It was an amazing collaboration of young energy with senior wisdom to be admired by everyone who stepped foot in our office. We hugged, we cried, we laughed — and this experience was something our group will cherish forever.
So, when it comes to the Liberals losing the Sudbury seat last June, I would ask the Premier to look in the mirror. Being a leader means taking responsibility for your actions. My team is responsible for keeping the Liberal party “in the game” in Sudbury after Toronto had given up on us.
Some people talk about doing politics differently. We actually did politics differently. That’s what leadership really looks like.