Layton defends against 'stop-gap' candidates

The NDP's sudden burst of momentum is shining new light on the party's candidates and some of those standard-bearers are being found far from the ridings they are seeking to represent.

NDP Leader Jack Layton has been forced to address both his recent surge in public opinion polls but also why some of his candidates are not being seen in their ridings.

Isabelle Maguire, the NDP candidate in Richmond-Arthabaska, has left for a three-week trip to France, according to La Nouvelle Union, a Victoriaville, Que., newspaper.

Earlier in the campaign, Jim Koppens was found to be vacationing in the Caribbean instead of knocking on doors in the Ontario riding of Ajax-Pickering.

And Layton was forced on Wednesday to explain why Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who works at a university pub in Ottawa, was not campaigning in her riding of Berthier-Maskinongé and instead was on vacation in Las Vegas.

Layton said Brosseau was on a pre-planned family vacation, but the real problem wasn't her absence. Instead, the larger issue is the Conservative government has not honoured its fixed election date legislation.

Layton's comments came during an at-times heated news conference Thursday.

"I'm extremely proud of our team, " Layton said.

When pressed repeatedly about media reports of candidates on vacation, the NDP leader was unapologetic.

"Most of them are here. Some of them had family plans they couldn't change," he said.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff told reporters on Thursday that the NDP's selection of candidates shows it is "not serious."

"This is a federal election. You've got to be there. You got to show up," Ignatieff said.

"You've got to have a team. People don't get elected by polls. They get elected by having an MP, a candidate who's there and wins the support of voters. You can't do that from Las Vegas."

Later, in Saskatoon, Layton was upbeat, asking an estimated crowd of more than 1,000 assembled outside in the blustery early evening if they "can feel the winds of change blowing?"

He told the crowd that people have to push aside the idea they have to vote for the same parties, and took a swipe at the Tories, saying the "friends of government" seem to get their way in Ottawa and play on people's fears.

Layton urged voters to turn out in record numbers and defy skeptics and prove them wrong.

"You are all now part of this movement for change."

Stop-gap candidates

Lining up 308 candidates is not an easy task for any of the parties. The Liberals and the NDP are running 308 candidates across the country, while the Conservatives have 307 and the Greens have candidates in 304 ridings.

William Cross, a political scientist at Carleton University, said political parties that suddenly feel a wave of momentum in a campaign often discover that some of their candidates are not in their communities during the election.

"So a party, like the NDP, that begins the campaign and it doesn't have a chance in huge swaths in the country but it still wants to nominate a candidate in every running," Cross said.

"So it ends up with a lot of stop-gap candidates, someone who will lend their name on the ballot."

But Cross said parties will always have to deal with a certain number of candidates, who put their names on the ballot even if they are not committed to campaigning, as long as there is pressure to find a candidate in every riding.

"It is a reflection of the electoral system, if you can't win then there is no incentive to campaign hard," Cross said.

"It would be different if we had a proportional representation system where every vote would count."

Candidates keeping low-profile

Meanwhile, NDP candidates in two Ottawa ridings are also keeping low profiles.

Voters in Ottawa-Orleans may have their NDP candidate in the city, but they may not be seeing Martine Cenatus very often.

The NDP candidate is not participating in debates or doing interviews because she is too busy working as an employee for the party itself.

Cenatus works in the fundraising department where she was recruited to run two months ago. She said she wasn't really trained to run a campaign.

"I haven't had any training per se as to how to be a candidate, nor do I think that there is a way of training a person as to be a candidate," Cenatus said.

Erin Peters, the NDP candidate in Carleton-Mississippi Mills, is also keeping a very low profile during the election.

A spokesman for the party said the decision whether to campaign is left up to the individual candidate.

But the NDP campaign also insisted other parties also have no-shows in their ranks.

The NDP released a statement on Thursday afternoon outlining four Liberal candidates that have been absent from their local races, such as Rebecca Darnell in Langley, B.C., Corina Ganton the candidate in Alberta's Peace River riding, Matthew Sinclar in Edmonton-Strathcona, and Kyle Warwick in Skeena-Bulkley Valley.

A Liberal spokeswoman said the NDP release "is a desperate attempt by the NDP who are having difficulties defending that they are a one-man show."

The Liberal official could not confirm whether the four candidates named by the NDP are actively campaigning in their ridings. However, she said the Liberals have "an experienced team of candidates across the country."