The Ontario NDP in St. Paul's riding will hold a nomination meeting on Monday after Premier Dalton McGuinty announced a byelection there for Sept. 17.

"New Democrats are thrilled at the prospect of a hard-fought by-election race," Dennis Young, the party's provincial secretary, said Thursday in a news release.

 "This by-election will give voters in St. Paul's a chance to tell the McGuinty government that the Liberals are out of touch with what really matters to Torontonians. ... St. Paul's should be a safe Liberal seat, but as the Premier said yesterday, you can never tell what's going to happen in a byelection."

Three candidates will be seeking the nomination, which had originally been scheduled for Sept. 9:

  • Dr. Bob Frankford - MPP for Scarborough East from 1990 to 1995
  • Julian Heller - lawyer and public education activist
  • Stuart Parker - former leader of British Columbia's Green Party and a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto

The Progressive Conservatives are expected to acclaim Toronto journalist Sue-Anne Levy as its candidate at a meeting on Thursday evening. She had been the civic affairs columnist for the Toronto Sun newspaper.

Realtor and community activist Chris Chopik will run for the Green Party.

Dr. Eric Hoskins will be the Liberal candidate.

They are all running to replace Michael Bryant, the former economic development minister, as the MPP for the affluent mid-town riding. Bryant stepped down in May to head Invest Toronto, a new agency designed to lure investment dollars to the city.

Bryant was first elected in St. Paul's in 1999, when the riding was created following a redistribution. He won the riding in the 2007 provincial election by more than 8,000 votes.

However, the riding's components have gone Tory in the past and even had an NDP MPP during the government of Bob Rae.

The harmonized sales tax introduced by the Liberal government of Premier Dalton McGuinty in its spring budget is expected to be a key issue.

Both the NDP and Conservatives -- who are trying to label the HST the "Dalton Sales Tax" -- have been attacking the tax, which will see the provincial sales tax cover the same goods and services as the federal GST. The switch won't happen until July 1, 2010.

The federal Conservative government gave Ontario $4.3 billion to help the transition.

The change will save Ontario businesses about $100 million per year, but it will extend the tax to many goods and services currently not covered by the eight per cent sales tax.

Ontario plans to keep the harmonized rate at 13 per cent (the GST is five per cent), but has claimed that the total tax burden of Ontarians won't change, as other tax cuts will be brought in. There will also be transitional payments.