The slate of candidates for next month's federal election has begun to come together in Windsor-Essex.
The election campaign began on Sunday when Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney dropped the writ, leaving candidates five weeks to convince voters to send them to Ottawa.
Incumbent Brian Masse of the NDP kicked off his campaign Monday evening in the Windsor West riding. His challengers include Harbinder Gill of the Conservatives, Louay Ahmad of the Green Party, and Jacob Bezaire of the People's Party of Canada. The Liberals have not yet announced their candidate.
In the newly redrawn riding of Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore, Liberal Irek Kusmierczyk is the incumbent. He will run against Mark McKenzie of the Conservatives, Alex Ilijoski of the NDP, and Nick Babic of the People's Party. So far, the Green Party has not nominated their candidate in this riding.
Chris Lewis of the Conservatives hopes voters will give him another term to represent the riding of Essex. So far, the NDP's Lori Wightman, Chris Sutton of the Liberals, and Jason Henry of the People's Party have filed to challenge him. The Green Party has not nominated their Essex candidate as of Monday night.
In Chatham-Kent-Leamington, Dave Epp is running for reelection as a Conservative. So far, the only challenger is Trevor Lee of the People's Party.
Parties have until Monday, April 7 to nominate their candidates for the election, which is Monday, April 28.