TORONTO - Premier Dalton McGuinty called a byelection Wednesday in a riding that Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory hopes will be his ticket back into the Ontario legislature.
Voters in the Peterborough-area riding of Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock will go to the polls on March 5, the premier's office said.
Tory announced last month he would seek the central Ontario seat after Conservative Laurie Scott stepped down to make way for him.
He's been without a seat since his ill-fated bid in the 2007 election for the Toronto riding held by Education Minister Kathleen Wynne.
His drawn-out search for a way back into the legislature ended Jan. 9 when Scott gave up the seat she'd held for five years and took a job as the party's campaign readiness chair.
Tory said he's disappointed McGuinty didn't call the byelection sooner to give him the opportunity to win the seat before the legislature returned from its winter break.
"The byelection will be when it's going to be," Tory said in an interview from the riding.
"But I think they're slow in calling that, just like they've been slow to get some doctors for these communities ... and slow to get jobs and investment here. So I guess they're true to form."
McGuinty had promised to move "sooner rather than later" to call the byelection, then said he would wait for all the candidates to be nominated before making it official.
Local school board chairman Rick Johnson will be running for the Liberals, but the NDP has yet to nominate its candidate.
Three New Democrats -- Lynne Boldt, Lyn Edwards and Stephen Woof -- will be vying for their party's nomination at a meeting Feb. 8.
Johnson lost to Scott in the 2007 election, but managed to pull in about 30 per cent of the votes.
The sprawling central Ontario riding -- one of the poorest in the province -- has been held by the Conservatives since 1994, when former cabinet minister Chris Hodgson was elected.
