Supplementary to my previous blog post

The by-elections have been called, but only the two in Quebec. The Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean should be able to be called for the same date of September 17 now that Michel Gauthier has resigned. Harper wants political conditions for him to improve before risking any of the by-elections in Ontario or British Columbia. Harper can't have thought Outremont to be that winnable for his party since he waited until the absolutely last day before calling the by-election. In my opinion political conditions for Harper in Quebec are not as good as he may have hoped, but still better for Harper than the Liberals would have hoped.

I have also found out that in Welland, Jody Di Bartolomeo lost the NDP nomination to Malcolm Allen in March 2007, and that is the reason Di Bartolomeo is not running for the NDP again. The NDP sometimes ends up denying the nomination to a candidate who came close in the previous election. For example, Steve McClurg came within 100 votes of winning in New Westminster-Coquitlam in the 2004 Federal Election, but in 2005 lost the nomination for the 2006 Federal Election to Dawn Black, who is now the MP for New Westminster-Coquitlam. If McClurg had won the nomination, he might well be the MP now. What happened instead is that McClurg recently became a Liberal and sought the Liberal nomination in Burnaby-New Westminster before giving up his ambition for being an MP and withdrawing.

Jody Di Bartolomeo similarly came fairly close in the last election and evidently wanted to again make an attempt to become an MP. While I wholeheartedly endorse John Maloney to win the next Federal Election in Welland, I feel a little bit sorry for Di Bartolomeo because he was denied a chance to run in the next election.