AWKWARD IN OXFORD — Who said byelections are boring? DAVE MACKENZIE's retirement has opened a seat in southwestern Ontario. There's no date for the vote to fill the vacancy in Oxford, but the Tories are already annoying each other. The party rejected GERRIT VAN DORLAND, a Hill staffer to Tory MP JEREMY PATZER and potential party candidate whose platform emphasizes faith, family and freedom. Van Dorland has the support of five CPC MPs: Patzer, LESLYN LEWIS, ROSEMARIE FALK, DAMIEN KUREK, and TOM KMIEC (his former Hill boss). Van Dorland worked for Lewis's party leadership campaign in 2022. His social conservative voter base could play kingmaker in the contest. — The party line: CPC d-comm SARAH FISCHER told the Canadian Press that Van Dorland's run for the candidacy was "barred for failing to provide information such as a list of social media accounts and comments he made online." — Frenemies: Two competitors for the candidacy are urging the party to reinstate their rival. ARPAN KHANNA tweeted a letter saying as much. Khanna is also the party's national outreach chair (and counts ANDREW SCHEER as a supporter). He's taken heat for a lack of historical ties to the riding. Fellow contender RICK ROTH, a former Hill and Queen's Park senior staffer who is married to Poilievre leadership campaign d-comm GINNY ROTH, released his own statement that appeared to place Khanna squarely in its crosshairs. "Whether the party sees it or not, Gerrit represents and has the support of a massive community here in Oxford," Roth said. "I know this because I've spoken to thousands of residents in the past few months, and many have told me their stories and connection to Gerrit and his family; through church, school or other community organizations." Van Dorland's rejection, Roth said, "sets a dangerous path of ignoring grassroots voices for a preferred parachute candidate with no connection to our community." Shots fired. The so-con vote is a powerful incentive in Oxford. LOBBY WATCH — Lobbyists reliably produce a logjam of communication reports on the 15th of every month, which is the deadline for disclosing any meetings held with public office holders in the previous calendar month. Many lobbyists tick a box that auto-posts their reports at the mid-month mark. Wednesday brought a pile of meetings dating mostly to February. By the end of the day, in-house and consultant lobbyists had posted a whopping 1,814. — The biggest filer: The Canadian Labour Congress posted 146 reports on Wednesday, including eight ministers, 110 MPs and 25 senators. — Busy bee(tles): Volkswagen and its hired consultants filed a dollop of communication reports with ministers, political staffers and senior-level bureaucrats. They've racked up 41 since November, when the company first recorded a meeting with Innovation Minister FRANÇOIS-PHILIPPE CHAMPAGNE, his deputy minister SIMON KENNEDY and Finance DM MICHAEL SABIA. Kennedy has appeared in 27 of those reports. Champagne was noted in 11. COLETTE KAMINSKY, the associate assistant deputy minister for Innovation Canada, popped up in 14. Another AADM, MARY GREGORY from ISED's industry sector, was in six. FOR THE RECORD — Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU offered some unusually candid thoughts about a universal basic income yesterday, saying he tends to prefer “targeted” assistance. Early in the pandemic, when calls for a basic income were gaining traction, Trudeau opted to stick with such measures as the CERB, directed at particular segments of the population. Then, in April 2021, Liberal delegates at a policy convention overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution calling for the establishment of a universal basic income. At the time, Trudeau didn’t shut the door. Since then, the issue has largely fallen off the radar. And when the PM was asked for his opinion during a Wednesday town hall in rural Newfoundland, he was decidedly cool to the idea. He pointed instead to targeted measures like the Canada child benefit, C$10-a-day child care and the Canada workers benefit, which he called a “more nuanced approach.” — Here’s part of what he had to say: “We were very interested in the idea of basic income, because it goes with the philosophy that we’ve had of making sure that everyone is able to cover their basic needs. What we found, though, in looking into it is that it is so difficult to compare and contrast different experiences, different families, different needs, and to distill it down to one number that would be the same across the country. “I know there’s a few different projects going on with basic income pilots and we’re looking at the data on that. But we’re trying to … give people what they need in a targeted way rather than just a universal brush way.” — Location, location: The PM spent the day in Clarenville, Nfld., a town of 6,300 people on Newfoundland’s east coast, about a two-hour drive from St. John’s. It’s worth noting Conservative Leader PIERRE POILIEVRE was in Clarenville not three weeks ago, where he held his own version of a town hall (fewer questions, more speechifying). He also paid a visit to the town in May 2022, during the Conservative leadership race. It’s a lot of big-name attention for a small town. But Clarenville is in the riding of Bonavista–Burin–Trinity, currently held by Liberal MP CHURENCE ROGERS, which the Conservatives targeted in the 2021 election. Poll aggregator 338Canada gives the Liberals a six-point lead in the riding — 46 to 40 percent — which tracks with the 2021 election results. But that’s a considerable drop from 2015, when the Liberals won 82 percent of the vote. — One other note: The name of Bonavista–Burin–Trinity is likely to change to Terra Nova–The Peninsulas under the proposed redistribution of federal ridings. Just so you know.
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