It was supposed to be the first step in a comeback story. Instead, federal Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith walked out of a Scarborough school on Friday evening having lost a provincial nomination race by a razor-thin margin of 19 votes and with serious questions swirling about what comes next for his political future.
Members of the Ontario Liberal Party in the riding of Scarborough Southwest chose Ahsanul Hafiz, a local business owner, as their candidate for the upcoming provincial byelection, dealing a significant blow to Erskine-Smith’s carefully laid plans to transition from federal to provincial politics and mount a leadership bid.
Erskine-Smith, who currently represents the federal riding of Beaches-East York, had announced in February that he was shifting his focus to Ontario, declaring in a blog post titled “When it comes to Ontario, I’m all in” that rebuilding the provincial Liberal Party was where he could make the biggest difference. After placing second in the 2023 provincial leadership race, many saw his Scarborough gambit as the opening move of a second, stronger run at the top job.
Instead, he found himself standing outside a polling location, hinting at irregularities and telling reporters he needed to “debrief” with his team before deciding whether to challenge the outcome.
“I’ve spoken to a few scrutineers already who said they’ve never seen anything like it, and it’s unreal what happened in there,” Erskine-Smith said, adding that he had heard reports of voters with “ID issues” people claiming to have lost their driver’s licence or recently moved into the riding. He stopped short of making a formal accusation, saying the vote was “obviously very close” and that he needed to assess whether he considered it “fair.”
Hafiz pushed back. Speaking to reporters, he pointed to the crowd of supporters wearing his campaign badges as all the evidence he needed. “That is the clear evidence of who is the real winner,” he said, calling the nomination process fair and declining to dwell on his opponent’s allegations.
The loss carries an undercurrent of local resentment that had been building since Erskine-Smith first entered the race. Fellow nomination contestant Qadira Jackson who ran as the Liberal candidate in Scarborough Southwest during the 2025 provincial election made no secret of her feelings. She and Hafiz agreed to list each other second on the ranked ballots, a tactical alliance aimed squarely at preventing an outsider from parachuting into their community.
“I didn’t want my riding to be used as a tool,” Jackson said plainly, noting she wanted a local candidate to carry the nomination if she herself couldn’t win it.
Erskine-Smith had tried to undercut Hafiz’s local credentials, pointing out that he had spent much of his career in London, Ontario, operating Domino’s Pizza franchises. Hafiz’s supporters countered that he had settled in Scarborough nearly 25 years ago after arriving in Canada, making him very much a member of the community.
The political stakes were already high before a single vote was cast. Just a day before the nomination, Erskine-Smith posted a video showing himself alongside Prime Minister Mark Carney, who acknowledged it “hurts” to see the MP leave federal politics but said he hoped Erskine-Smith would serve the people of Scarborough Southwest well. The moment was clearly intended to signal momentum it may have instead read to local members as confirmation that their riding was being leveraged for someone else’s ambitions.
The provincial byelection was triggered after NDP MPP Doly Begum vacated the seat in February to run federally, a bid she won successfully in April. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has yet to set a date for the byelection, meaning the riding remains open and the Liberals, who finished third there in the last provincial election, are far from guaranteed a win regardless of who their candidate is.
For Erskine-Smith, the path to the Ontario Liberal leadership set to unfold this fall following Bonnie Crombie’s resignation in January now looks far less certain. Crombie stepped down after a bruising party review and a provincial election that left Liberals without official Opposition status and without her in the legislature. Erskine-Smith had been positioning himself as the fresh face capable of turning things around. Whether he can still make that case without a seat at Queen’s Park remains an open question.
His relationship with federal politics has also grown increasingly strained. He was dropped from cabinet by Carney last May and said at the time it was “impossible not to feel disrespected” by the decision a comment that now reads as part of a longer arc toward the provincial stage that, for the moment, has come to an abrupt stop.
Erskine-Smith said he would consult his team fully before deciding on his next move. Whether that means contesting the results, redirecting toward the leadership race from outside the legislature, or stepping back entirely remains unclear.
What is clear is that the road he mapped out in February just got a great deal harder.
