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Despite running a distant third with 14% of the vote in 2011, the Liberals believe they have an outside chance of staging an upset.

Their own polling and two public opinion surveys suggest Liberal candidate Celina Caesar-Chavannes, an entrepreneur, research consultant and political newcomer, is less than 10 points behind Perkins.

In a sign of how hot the Whitby-Oshawa contest has become over the past few weeks, various media outlets, including The Canadian Press, were alerted to documents that raised questions about some of Perkins’ mayoral expenses.

These included trips to real estate conferences in Las Vegas and Cannes, France, the installation of a back door to her office, a $345-a-night hotel room for a conference in Ottawa, as well as her handling of two funds controlled by the mayor.

Perkins did not respond to a request for an interview, but a spokesman said all expenses were above-board, as was her handling of a Whitby performing arts centre fund and a community development fund.

“Our opposition has been spreading (the documents) to every media outlet from here through to Ottawa for a few weeks now in an attempt to smear Ms. Perkins throughout this campaign,” Wiebe Bergsma said in an email.

At a minimum, Caesar-Chavannes appears certain to vault past her New Democrat rival, Trish McAuliffe, an auto worker and union activist, who ran second against Flaherty in 2011 with a respectable 22 per cent of the vote.

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That would be another feather in the cap for Justin Trudeau, who has led the Liberals to dramatic gains in every byelection held since he became Liberal leader 19 months ago. It would further cement the perception that the Liberals, left for dead in 2011, are now the real alternative to the Harper government, not the official Opposition NDP.