Liberals dispatch cabinet ministers to help win Sudbury

Ontario's Liberals are sending in some high-profile cabinet ministers to help the party win back the Sudbury riding in the Feb. 5 byelection.

Health Minister Eric Hoskins, Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca, Infrastructure Minister Brad Duguid and other ministers will hold joint events in Sudbury with Liberal candidate Glenn Thibeault.

Premier Kathleen Wynne is also making repeated visits to Sudbury to help Thibeault, who was a New Democrat member of Parliament until he was appointed to be the Liberal candidate in the provincial byelection.

Wynne's decision to lure Thibeault from the NDP instead of allowing the Liberal candidate in last June's election, Andrew Olivier, to run again upset some party loyalists in Sudbury.

Olivier, who finished less than 1,000 votes behind New Democrat Joe Cimino in June, is running as an independent in the byelection.

It was Cimino's surprise decision to resign in November, just five months after taking Sudbury from the Liberals, that prompted the need for the byelection.