Rev up your engines indeed — the Ottawa-Vanier and Niagara West-Glanbook byelections will be held on Nov. 17.
Progressive Conservative candidate, avid tweeter, and former Ontario Ombudsman André Marin broke the news this morning when he tweeted and deleted word of the byelections.
"By-election called for Ottawa-Vanier and Niagara West Glanbrook. E Day November 17, 2016. Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines," he tweeted Wednesday morning.
Marin then tweeted: "Revved the engine a little too soon - heard that the by-election had been called and am excited to get going! Vroom!"
By then, PC MPP Lisa MacLeod mentioned the byelection during Question Period and tweeted about it herself. Soon afterwards, Elections Ontario posted the dates on its site, confirming that Marin was indeed correct.
The mini-drama is reminiscent of the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection call, when Liberal candidate Piragal Thiru broke the writ news by sending out his press release faster than the government was able to.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This morning, I signed writs authorizing by-elections in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OttawaVanier?src=hash">#OttawaVanier</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NiagaraWestGlanbrook?src=hash">#NiagaraWestGlanbrook</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/onpoli?src=hash">#onpoli</a> <a href="https://t.co/obOrmgorDx">pic.twitter.com/obOrmgorDx</a>
— Elizabeth Dowdeswell (@LGLizDowdeswell) <a href="https://twitter.com/LGLizDowdeswell/status/788772175943794688">October 19, 2016</a></blockquote>
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The other parties had a little fun with Marin.
Attorney General Yasir Naqvi called him"Twitter happy," and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath quipped, "When it comes to André Marin, you never know what he's going to do on Twitter."
Marin has a history of getting in hot water with tweets. He once <a href="http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2013/09/13/ontario-ombudsman-identifies-cop-who-sent-hostile-tweets.html" target="_blank">named and shamed the wrong Durham Regional Police Service officer</a> on Twitter for writing racially-charged tweets about him and later, in a bid to keep his ombudsman job, launched a Twitter campaign that included retweeting someone calling Ontario <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontarios-ombudsman-takes-to-twitter-as-end-of-term-approaches/article24660428/" target="_blank">a banana republic</a>.
PC MPP John Yakabuski took media questions on behalf of Leader Patrick Brown on Wednesday, as Brown was at an event with former prime minister Brian Mulroney in his riding of Simcoe North.
Yakabuski said he wasn't familiar with Marin's tweet, but wants to "get on with the show." He said Ottawa-Vanier is the Liberals' to lose, and the PC's are enthusiastic, even though it's been a Liberal riding for decades, last represented by former attorney general Madeleine Meilleur.
"Kathleen Wynne has shown in the last little while she's not adept at winning byelections, so we have high hopes in Ottawa-Vanier," he said.
Marin will face Liberal Nathalie Des Rosiers, dean of the University of Ottawa law school and former General Counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and NDP candidate Claude Bisson, who is the brother of NDP house leader Gilles Bisson.
Only the Liberals have a candidate in Niagara-West Glanbrook, Vicky Ringuette, a family lawyer and mediator. The NDP will have a candidate shortly, according to Horwath.
The PCs have held the riding since it was created in 2004 and have a number of high profile candidates vying for the nomination, including PC party president and former Conservative MP Rick Dykstra and Niagara regional councillor Tony Quirk who counts the riding's last MPP, former PC leader Tim Hudak, among his fans. The nomination was originally scheduled for Nov. 5, but now must be moved up to meet the nominations deadline on Nov. 3.
PWynne said the Liberals have "two strong women" running in the byelections.
"We have two great candidates in Ottawa-Vanier and Niagara-West Glanbrook," she said. "They will be hard-fought byelections, there's no doubt about that, but I'm very confident in the candidates that we've got."

Ottawa-Vanier and Niagara West-Glanbrook byelections called for Nov. 17

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