Mr. Bertschi, who has been sounding out support for months and takes on Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Centre, Alta.) on a campaign website pre-launch post, is one several Liberals from outside the party’s Parliamentary caucus expected to announce their candidacies as the Nov. 14 date for the contest’s official start nears.
Mr. Bertschi ran unsuccessfully in the last election in Ottawa Orleans against Conservative incumbent MP Royal Galipeau, who won the riding with 44.6 per cent of the vote, or by 3,935 votes.
In a “Why I’m Running” post on his leadership website, Mr. Bertschi, who has also served as a Crown prosecutor on human rights cases while building his private law practice, says Canada is at a “crossroads.”
“The Canada we know and love is in jeopardy,” the post says. “The Canada is based on a strong, balanced economy that provides equal opportunities for all Canadians regardless of income, ethnicity, orientation, or region is gradually but surely being replaced by one founded on a much different vision.”
“That vision is Stephen Harper’s politics of fear and cynicism, the politics of expediency at the expense of democracy,” Mr. Bertschi, 52, says.
Mr. Bertschi is only the third Liberal so far to officially declare a candidacy, even though party president Mike Crawley effectively set the race in motion when he announced campaign spending limits and other rules at a meeting of the party’s MPs and Senators at the Chateau Montebello in Montebello, Que., last Sept. 6.
Though Liberal MP Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) is the prospective front-runner, having launched his campaign on Oct. 2, Mr. Bertschi and the other declared candidate, Toronto lawyer and longtime Liberal activist Deborah Coyne, have told The Hill Times in past interviews they would run with the goal of winning.
Other Liberals expected to throw in their hats are former astronaut and Liberal MP Marc Garneau (Westmount, Ville Marie, Que.); Toronto lawyer George Takach, who has also been sounding out support for months; former B.C. Liberal party president David Merner; Alex Burton, a Crown attorney and president of a Vancouver federal Liberal electoral district association; and Jonathan Mousley, a former federal Cabinet aide who has taken a leave of absence from the Ontario public service to vie for the Liberal helm.
Mr. Bertschi is expected to be the lone candidate from Ottawa. Rumours in Liberal ranks suggest Liberal MP David McGuinty (Ottawa South, Ont.) may be ruling out a bid. Mr. McGuinty, brother of retiring Ottawa Premier Dalton McGuinty, has long considered his own candidacy for the federal leadership.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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