Normand Houde, a spokesman for the Liberals' Quebec regional office, said Westmount-Ville Marie is one of three ridings in Montreal where party leader Stéphane Dion plans to exercise his discretionary power to name a candidate, rather than allowing local riding association members to decide through an election.

According to Houde, Dion will also be appointing candidates in Outremont, where Liberal MP Jean Lapierre is not seeking re-election, and in LaSalle-Émard, the riding of former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, who is also leaving politics.

Brigitte Garceau, president of the Westmount-Ville Marie Liberal riding association, confirmed that nomination procedures in the riding have been suspended. "That's what I've been told," she said.

"There's not going to be one of those conventions where you could have four or five people battling it out for the nomination, like Papineau," she added, referring to the three-way race where Justin Trudeau, Mary Deros and Basilio Giordano all want to represent the Liberals.

Garceau's name was one of several mentionned in speculation over the past few weeks on who might seek to replace current Liberal MP Lucienne Robillard, who is retiring.

Asked how she felt about the nomination process being overruled, Garceau said, "At the current time I have to respect that decision, because it's the prerogative of the leader of our party to make that decision. We'll see. I don't know what the leader has in mind."

Topping the list of other possible contenders for the Westmount-Ville Marie nomination is former Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau, who resides in Westmount, and Désirée McGraw, an NDG resident who ran for an executive posting with the Liberals at the party's leadership convention last September.