Competition increases for NDP nod in Sudbury

It wasn't so long ago that the person who won the Liberal nomination in Sudbury was a near shoo-in to take the seat, either provincially or federally.

But in a sign of how much politics in this city is changing, a second high-profile candidate has stepped forward to run for the New Democrats in the next provincial election.

Ward 1 Coun. Joe Cimino, a city councillor for the last seven years, announced Tuesday morning that he's running to be the NDP's nominee in Sudbury. He joins Paul Loewenberg, a bar manager and artistic director of NFLB, who came within a few hundred votes of upsetting Rick Bartolucci, a longtime Liberal MPP and former cabinet minister, in 2011.

Cimino said he waited until the very last minute to make up his mind whether to run. He filed his papers at the party's annual general meeting held June 23.

“It was a tough decision to make,” Cimino said, at a press conference Tuesday at James Jerome Field. “I had been speaking about it with my family, because I need their support. I wouldn't do this unless my wife and my family support it.”

Unlike many city councillors, Cimino has a full-time job along with his council responsibilities, so it was a major decision, he said. Should he win the NDP nomination, he said he will continue on council, but will take an unpaid leave of absence from his teaching job.

He decided to run because he supports NDP values and feels ready to try and take his political career to another level.

“I was looking at where I am in my life,” he said. “I was thinking to myself that maybe this is the right time to take it to the next level provincially and represent Sudbury, the way I have been as a councillor.”

The NDP in Sudbury connects with local values on a deep level, he said, and he likes that the party supports such things as Sudbury acquiring a PET scanner, an advanced method of cancer detection.

“You look around, and they're connected with the workers, they're connected with small business,” he said. “It's their value system in general.”

Loewenberg said he welcomes the competition, saying it can only help the party grow and get stronger.

“It's good, it's going to bring a wider range of new people to the party,” he said. “We're continually building. I've been working with the party for the last two years, since the last election, and I'm looking forward to expanding on that.”

He's going to keep working to sign up new supporters ahead of the nomination meeting, expected to be held sometime in the early fall. While he expects it to be competitive, he said it won't become divisive.

“The nomination (process) can be as gruelling as the campaign itself,” he said, “except the actual competition is friendlier, because you're fighting for the same values. (So) I can't see how it could be nasty when we're fighting for the same thing.”

With recent polls showing the NDP far ahead in terms of support in Sudbury, the candidates know there's a good chance whoever wins the nomination will win the seat. Former school board trustee Paula Peroni is running for the Tories, while the Liberals have yet to nominate a candidate in either Sudbury or Nickel Belt.

With Bartolucci, a high-profile cabinet minister in Dalton McGuinty's government, the Liberals have had a stranglehold on the Sudbury seat for more than a decade. But with the MPP retiring before the next election and McGuinty long gone, the NDP has hopes of turning the area completely orange.

The party currently holds three of four seats located in the Sudbury area: MPP France Gélinas in Nickel Belt, MP Claude Gravel in Nickel Belt federally, and MP Glenn Thibeault in Sudbury. Thibeault, who attended Tuesday morning's press conference, said the NDP surge is a result of a lot of hard work.

“I was acclaimed in 2008 coming into this, with the blinders off, knowing that for a long time, Sudbury was a Liberal riding,” he said.

“But if you work hard, if you support your brand and talk about what the NDP stands for, people will start to understand who we are and what we're about. And that's why you're starting to see a lot of competition for provincial nominations.”

Richard Eberhardt, president of the Sudbury NDP, said the party has about 400 members, but expects that to grow as the candidates sign up new supporters. With the nomination meeting likely in October, he said they have a lot to do in a short amount of time.

“They've got a summer ahead of hard work,” Eberhardt said.

He expects more candidates will step forward, adding any party member can declare up until two weeks before the nomination meeting.