This could be the battle royal that defines the next Ontario election.
Veteran city councillor Jo-Anne Gignac confirmed Tuesday that she is considering running for the Liberals in Windsor-Tecumseh, setting up a potential duel with popular council colleague Percy Hatfield, who is seeking the nomination for the NDP.
“They approached, I consider it an honour to be asked and I will consider it carefully,” Gignac wrote in a terse email, declining to discuss her chances, the issues or the prospect of duking it out with Hatfield.
Gignac met on Monday with Tom Allison, deputy chief of staff of political operations for the Ontario Liberal Party and campaign manager for Premier Kathleen Wynne’s leadership bid. She’s interested, I’m told, but she doesn’t want to fight for the nomination.
Allison also met with two other potential candidates. Michael Duben, a lawyer, former general manager for the city, now vice-president of customer relations for Enwin Utilities and prominent community volunteer, is also considering running. He says he hasn’t decided yet, but he sure sounds like he has.
“I’ve always served my community in some fashion,” Duben, 45, said in an interview. “That’s just something that comes naturally to me. You can either sit back and criticize or you can be part of the decision-making group. To me this is sort of the ultimate. Maybe it’s time.”
Remy Boulbol, executive director of the Rose City Islamic Centre, an active member of the provincial and federal Liberals, will declare her candidacy within days. Born and raised in Detroit, she’s a dual citizen who converted to the Muslim faith as an adult and would be the first Muslim woman in the Ontario legislature to wear the hijab.
Boulbol, 35, who is married and has two children, is described as driven and hard-working. She has worked for non-profits for 15 years and calls politics a “natural transition.”
“I’ve always worked with the community,” she said in an interview.
Smart, articulate and known for his work with the Rotary Club (he and his wife, Shelly, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for mosquito nets for Tanzania), Duben is known among the city’s movers and shakers, but ordinary voters probably don’t know him.
Boulbol isn’t widely known in Windsor, but she has a lot of connections in the city’s significant Muslim community. If they support her, don’t count her out.
But Gignac is the household name the Liberals need. A city councillor since 2003 and a Catholic school board trustee for 12 years before that, Gignac won 68 per cent of the votes in Ward 6 in the last election. She has a reputation as a smart, tough, no-nonsense politician.
Is she really a Liberal? I’m not sure Gignac and Premier Kathleen Wynne, a progressive, have a lot in common. I’m not sure Gignac and Windsor-Tecumseh have a lot in common. The federal riding is NDP and the provincial riding was NDP for years before former finance minister Dwight Duncan won it. Gignac is a fiscal conservative who says no a lot.
Said one well-placed source, “If Jo-Anne Gignac wins (the nomination), Percy Hatfield will be running against two Tories – (Robert) de Verteuil (the Conservative candidate) and Gignac.”
But at least you know what you’re getting. She says what she thinks, and that’s how she votes. She would excel in the legislature. And given the government’s stale cabinet, she could go places.
But even Gignac will have a fight against Hatfield, the retired CBC television reporter in his second term on council. (Hatfield wasn’t responding to attempts to get him to comment.)
Popular NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has been to Windsor so many times in the last two years her car probably drives on autopilot. She has hammered the government’s failed attempt to turn the former Grace Hospital into a long-term care home. There’s a reason she launched her province-wide tour here on Saturday: she’s gunning for the seat in Windsor-Tecumseh that Duncan vacated.
No doubt that’s why Wynne made her first visit to Windsor a couple of weeks ago. She called the city “the best kept secret in the province.” I like Wynne, but that was depressing. Does she remember her former colleagues, Duncan and economic development and trade minister Sandra Pupatello? Has she heard of the auto industry? Is this what government members from Toronto think of us – nothing, not even on the radar?
The NDP is going to throw all the Liberals’ baggage at them, from the former Grace Hospital to horse racing. They’re going to empty their offices to come here and fight. And the teachers are going to join them. And a by-election – if the Liberals survive to call a by-election – is different than a general election. It’s when voters send a message. And when voters want to send a message, it’s not usually the kind of message the government wants to hear.
The nomination meeting is expected in mid-May, around the time the government tables its budget and learns its fate.
ajarvis@windsorstar.com or 255-5587. Follow me on Twitter @winstarjarvis.
