MONTREAL — The winner of the vigorously contested right to be the Conservative candidate in Mount Royal, a federal riding that has been Liberal for 75 years, will be known April 26 when the Tories hold their nomination meeting.

There are three contenders. In order of their entry into the race, they are former Côte St. Luc mayor and Montreal executive committee member Robert Libman, former TVA broadcaster Pascale Déry and lawyer Neil Drabkin. 

An early entrant, Beryl Wajsman, editor of the Suburban, withdrew his name shortly before the deadline of March 26, while Drabkin, a former chief of staff to two of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet ministers, entered near the cut-off.

The nomination will be held at the YM-YWHA from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. when paid-up party members cast ballots.

The Liberal candidate in the election, which is expected to be held Oct. 19, is Anthony Housefather, mayor of Côte St. Luc, who was chosen by party members in November.

Liberal Irwin Cotler, who has been Mount Royal MP since 1999, announced more than a year ago that he would not seek re-election.

Libman, 54, who was first out of the gate in September, is an architect by training who co-founded and was an MNA for the provincial Equality Party after his upset victory in the staunchly Liberal D’Arcy McGee in 1989. 

Déry, 38, a political newcomer, announced her bid in January, when Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney spoke in support of her nomination.

Both Déry and Libman have been actively campaigning and signing up party members, which is key to their chance of capturing the nomination. The deadline for becoming a member was April 2 at midnight.

Wajsman, 60, who declared his intention to run shortly after Libman, said he decided to quit because he wanted “to continue his commitment to our communities in [his] advocacy role as editor of the Suburban and president of the Institute for Public Affairs,” a “social advocacy” organization he founded.

He also cited the recent hostile hacking of the Suburban’s website and “the spate of threats we have received” as factors convincing him not to seek office.

Drabkin,53,, told The CJN: “I have accepted to seek the nomination… at this late stage in response to an appeal that was made to me by longtime Conservatives in the riding… There is a genuine concern on the part of such members that the contest between the two existing candidates has become so polarized that the Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish communities are being pitted against each other. This, they believe, will result in division in the community come the federal election… and, thereby, damage our party’s chances of winning the seat.”

Drabkin says he earned the respect of both segments of the community from the days when he was special assistant to Gerry Weiner, minister responsible for multiculturalism in the Mulroney government.

“This is why those longtime Conservatives… believe that I have the credibility and stature to unite the membership, regardless of origin, in common cause behind our prime minister,” whom he praises for his “unwavering” support of Israel.

Drabkin has unsuccessfully run for a seat in the House of Commons five times since 1993, for three parties – the Progressive Conservatives (PCs), the Canadian Alliance and the Conservatives, including twice in Mount Royal in 1993 and 2006. He ran for the Tories in Westmount-Ville Marie in the last election in 2011.

He was chief of staff to then-natural resources minister Joe Oliver and, prior to that, to Stockwell Day, who held a number of portfolios in Harper’s cabinet 

Drabkin began his political career in 1984 working on the campaign of Weiner, who won a West Island seat for the PCs.

Libman told The CJN that it speaks well for the party, and Harper in particular, that four qualified people sought to run for the Conservatives in the riding. Less than a decade ago, the Conservative flag-bearer in Mount Royal would have been considered a sacrificial lamb, but Liberal support has been eroding, and, in the last election four years ago, Cotler garnered only 41 per cent of the vote, well down from the 90-plus per cent he once enjoyed, and only about 2,200 votes ahead of Conservative Saulie Zajdel.

The Conservatives are working very hard to take Mount Royal, banking on Harper’s strong and consistent support for Israel among Jewish voters, who represent about 35 per cent of the population and traditionally show a high voter turnout.

Currently, the Conservatives hold only five of the 75 Quebec seats and none on the Island of Montreal.

On the other hand, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is determined not to lose Mount Royal, the riding his late father, Pierre Trudeau, held for two decades. And how strong support for Harper remains among non-Jews is not as clear.

Libman said that at this point, it’s all about getting the vote out. He said last week the official list of Conservative members in Mount Royal had not yet been compiled, but that he had done “extremely well” in signing up members at $15 per person. (The Liberals’ fee was $10.)

The rather late nomination meeting call means the “snowbirds” supporting Libman will be back in Montreal, but it has also given Déry more time to gather people.

Déry said she is confident she will carry the day on April 26. “My campaign has gone very, very well. I’ve had a great response on the ground and reached out to many, many communities, those in TMR and Côte des Neiges, as well as Côte St. Luc and Hampstead.

“Having entered a little late, I have had to work hard to catch up… but I’m pretty confident about the nomination.”

Asked if it is fair to describe her as the party favourite, Déry responded that, “at the end of the day, this is a mathematical process – it’s about the number of members you sign and get out to the meeting.”

Libman is touting the approximately 40 public endorsements he has received from “a very strong cross-section of the riding: prominent philanthropists, lawyers, doctors, dentists, builders, educators, professors, entrepreneurs, etc.”

Déry, who left a 15-year career in broadcast journalism, said that experience made her “aware of the importance of elected officials and the major challenges facing the next election” and given her the skills and contacts that would be assets as a member of Parliament.

At the nomination meeting, members will vote for their first and second choices on one ballot.

Should no candidate receive a simple majority, the second-choice votes of those who voted first for the person who finished last will be added to the tally of the remaining two candidates. There will be no run-off vote.

A wild card in the election is how well the New Democratic Party (NDP) will do in Mount Royal. In 2011, the NDP candidate Jeff Itcush received close to 18 per cent, or almost 7,000 votes, one of the best showings for that party ever in the riding.

But whether that local result or the NDP’s unprecedented “orange crush” in Quebec will be repeated is on the minds of both the Liberals and Conservatives.

The Mount Royal NDP candidate, chosen in March, is Mario Rimbao, 36, a riding resident and maritime agent by profession.

Itcush believes Rimbao will “not only match but surpass” the 2011 figures because Rimbao has “a strong connection to different cultural communities, and a lot of people are wanting to make donations to the party.”

Itcush, a Bialik High School teacher and long-time NDP activist, also believes “the groundwork I laid and the fact that the NDP’s message is resonating with more people” bodes well for the party.

Another unknown factor is the turnout. It was 57 per cent in Mount Royal in 2011. If it is higher in this time around, the question is where will that support go?