Liberal Leader Stephane Dion issued a statement and that’s all the press he’s doing today on the Wajid Khan defection. But a Liberal staffer e-mails me to make a point that you’d think Dion might have wanted to make, that being, that Khan is doing the Libs a favour by vacating a Toronto-area seat.
How’s that, you ask?
“He's done the party a huge favour by opening up a Toronto seat for a high profile candidate. We were having problems finding a spot in the event nobody retired,” my Liberal source says. “Could be Rae, Kennedy, Findley or someone else. Maybe even Rock.”
Mind you, Bob Rae might run against Jack Layton in Broadview-Greenwood; the thinking there being that, for Rae, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for him personally to lose and, just by running he would suck NDP resources into that riding to support Layton. Gerard Kennedy is probably eyeing Parkdale-High Park, now held by NDPer Peggy Nash who unseated Liberal Sam Bulte in the last election. But Martha Hall Findley might make sense there.
Both Liberal and Conservative staffers I spoke to today, by the way, agree that Khan doesn’t have a hope winning the riding as a Conservative.
Despite a very credible Conservative candidate in 2006, the Liberal Khan coasted to victory by 7,000 votes.