Failed Liberal blames party

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This article was published 13/12/2014 (4194 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The Liberal candidate who almost staged a major political upset in Brandon-Souris last year says he only lost the 2013 byelection because of meddling by the national Liberal office.

Rolf Dinsdale issued a scathing letter on Facebook on Friday, saying he won’t be seeking the nomination for the riding again and that “the Liberal party has made deciding not to run an easy choice for me to make.”

A Liberal party source said Dinsdale is blaming everyone but himself for the loss and doesn’t even live in Brandon.

“He’s always playing the victim,” said the source.

The dispute is the latest in a string of nomination dust-ups pitting Leader Justin Trudeau against candidates who say Trudeau’s promise to have open nominations in every riding is a lie.

The Liberals came within 391 votes of defeating Conservative Larry Maguire in November 2013, in large part because of a party nomination dispute among the Conservatives that prompted Killarney-Turtle Mountain Mayor Rick Pauls to announce plans to run as an independent.

Dinsdale, already seeking the Liberal nomination, said he was thrilled at the prospect of seeing Pauls split the vote with Maguire, leaving the Liberals to come through the middle with a win.

Instead, he says everything went haywire when the Liberals decided to lure Pauls in to run against Dinsdale for the Liberal nomination.

“This outside meddling in the Brandon-Souris Liberal nomination had the triple effect of damaging my confidence, delaying my nomination and taking away the advantage a conservative family feud and split vote would have provided the Liberals,” Dinsdale wrote.

In the end, Dinsdale defeated Pauls for the nomination, but lost the election to Maguire.

Dinsdale also says the party has gone to great lengths since the byelection to find someone other than him to run in the next election. He says he’s giving up and staying in Toronto, where his 10-year-old daughter lives, so he can continue to share custody with her mother.

Liberals close to the riding say Dinsdale brought the entire thing on himself because he took forever to file his nomination papers, and had he done so he would have been acclaimed as the candidate long before Pauls was in the picture.

Pauls was recruited on the advice of riding association members who were not thrilled with Dinsdale’s lack of action and worried he would be seen as a parachute candidate. He had lived in Toronto, returning to Brandon shortly before the seat became open.

A Liberal said Dinsdale would probably have been the Liberals’ preferred candidate in Brandon because he did so well in 2013 and has good local name recognition.

He upset local Liberals because after the byelection he went back to Toronto, not even showing up to thank volunteers. The source also said the party steered $125,000 and several organizers to the riding as well as three visits by Trudeau.

“We threw everything and the kitchen sink at it,” he said.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca