Parties lost a swath of candidates last week. After Monday, it'll be too late to replace them

Candidates were dropping almost as fast as the writs in the first two weeks of the campaign. But after Monday, political parties will have an additional problem if they decide to remove someone from their ticket — they won't be able to put forward a backup contender.

Between the Liberals and Conservatives, more than half a dozen candidates have stepped away or been kicked off their party tickets.

Michele Cadario, a former Liberal campaign director, said the snap election call could be the reason so many candidates have been booted this early. She suggested the parties are trying to vet candidates quickly.

"Time that might have otherwise been spent doing deeper dives into candidate recruitment and all of that — everything got fast-tracked," she said.

Dan Mader, who worked on the Conservatives' 2021 campaign, said most of the candidates let go last week were likely in ridings their respective parties don't expect to win. But that calculation will probably change soon, Mader said.

"If any party has something juicy on a candidate for another party that they want to drop next week, expect to see a bit more of an attempt by that candidate's party to hold on to them."

Parties have until 2 p.m. ET on Monday to finalize their nominated candidates. They won't be able to replace any candidates who are dropped after that deadline.

Beyond vetting their own candidates, campaigns also do research on their opposition. From an outside perspective, it might make sense to hold onto any damning information until an opposing contender is locked in, but Cadario said that in some circumstances, it might make sense to get it out early.

"You may want to disrupt the other party's momentum in the first few days of the campaign."

"So you might plan that to get some attention in an early week. In other cases, you might want to hold back, especially if it might be juicy."

Mader agreed that it depends on how the parties are strategizing, but that waiting until after Monday's deadline would make sense in a riding that is expected to be a tight race.

But in other cases, the party will push out opposition research on a candidate to get the opposing party's leader off their game, he said: "Maybe the party's got a big announcement. Maybe the party leader is having a really good day and you want to throw a banana peel in their path."

There may also be cases where a candidate will sink themselves, Cadario said, by saying something or acting in a way that's counter to the party's philosophy. 

Cadario said there may also be circumstances where a candidate will sink themselves: "A candidate in the riding might go off and say something that is completely counter to what your party's philosophy is or perhaps it's unacceptable … or the behaviour is unacceptable," she said.