Voters have dealt Prime Minister Justin Trudeau another devastating byelection loss, this time picking a Bloc Québécois candidate in a Montreal riding that’s been held by the Liberals for most of the last century.
The defeat in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun is Trudeau’s second byelection loss in a safe Liberal seat in the last three months and it raises questions about his long-term viability as party leader.
Bloc candidate Louis-Philippe Sauvé very narrowly beat Liberal Laura Palestini — a stunning upset given the governing party’s past strength in this part of southwest Montreal. NDP candidate Craig Sauvé finished third.
Constituents started celebrating before the final votes were tallied, with members serenading Louis-Phillipe Sauvé with a rendition of Gens du pays.
It was one of the tightest three-way electoral battles in recent memory with the leading candidates trading places throughout the count and a final result only known after 2:45 a.m. ET.
In the end, the Bloc’s Sauvé took 28 per cent compared to 27.2 per cent for Palestini and 26.1 per cent for the New Democrat. Fewer than 250 votes separated the Bloc and Liberal candidates.
Ahead of final results in the LaSalle-Émard-Verdun byelection, Liberal party candidate Laura Palestini thanks those who worked on her campaign for their enthusiasm and support.
While the other parties squabble with one another and take on an increasingly nasty tone in the House of Commons, the Bloc “presented ourselves to voters as the adults in the room,” said Bloc MP Christine Normandin from Sauvé’s victory party.
“We’re working for the people of Quebec. The voters here are telling us, ‘Please continue to fight for us.’ They’re sending a message to the government. The Bloc has the support of the population and we will make more gains for Quebecers,” she said.
Before Monday’s byelection, there were few seats safer than LaSalle-Émard-Verdun for the federal Liberals in Quebec. This loss is a sign of how far the party has fallen.
Ahead of final results in the Montreal byelection in the riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun Monday night, NDP candidate Craig Sauvé said his campaign was a dream and thanked his supporters.
Former prime minister Paul Martin previously represented parts of this riding, and a non-Liberal candidate hasn’t won here since the historic Orange Wave of 2011 when Quebec voters elected dozens of NDP MPs.
The outgoing Liberal MP, David Lametti, beat his Bloc opponent by some 20 points in this riding in 2021. Palestini lost by less than one percentage point.
If that same sort of vote swing was applied to other Liberal ridings in Quebec, more than a dozen MPs could lose their seats at the next election.
“We are very proud of the campaign we ran,” said Tourism Minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada, who also represents a Montreal riding.
“It’s a good dry run for the general election — that’s what matters, that’s where voters are going to be electing the next government,” she told CBC News before the final result was known.
Separatist resurgence
The Bloc victory is the latest sign that separatist parties are enjoying a bit of a resurgence in Quebec after years in the wilderness.
The Parti Quebecois (PQ), the provincial party that essentially launched the modern Quebec independence movement and twice led the campaign to separate from Canada, is seeing an upswing in support as Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec stumbles after six years in office.
The PQ leader, Paul St. Pierre Plamondon, campaigned in the riding for Sauvé and praised the Bloc for its work in Ottawa, a city he said is a “hostile environment” where Quebecers are always on the defensive.
The Liberal defeat in Montreal comes weeks after Conservative candidate Don Stewart bested his Liberal opponent in Toronto-St. Paul’s. Before that June loss, the riding had been held by the Liberals for more than 30 years.
This month, the Liberal party’s campaign director quit and the NDP pulled the plug on the supply-and-confidence agreement that gave the government some breathing room in a minority Parliament.
While there have been calls for him to step aside after a tumultuous period, Trudeau has said he will carry on as prime minister and take the Liberals into the next federal election no matter what happens.
He has said he can’t leave now because he wants to make sure Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre doesn’t win and take the country in a radically different direction.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Trudeau said Saturday in an interview on the Montreal radio station CJAD 800.
“I’ve got a fight to lead against people who want to hurt this country,” he said.
NDP win in Winnipeg-area seat
Further west, NDP candidate Leila Dance won the Winnipeg seat of Elmwood-Transcona.
The result isn’t much of a shock because this working-class community in the city’s east end has been represented by a New Democrat for most of the last 45 years.
Elmwood-Transcona is one of the NDP’s safest seats. Only seven seats across the country were safer for the party in the last general election, according to a CBC News analysis of voting data.
Ahead of the final results in the LaSalle-Émard-Verdun byelection on Sept. 16, Tourism Minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada tells CBC’s Sarah Leavitt that Justin Trudeau will be leading the Liberal Party into the next election.
But the margin of victory is narrower this time than in years past — a sign that while the NDP pulled in enough votes to win again, the party’s brand has taken a hit.
Dance, a small business advocate, bested Conservative candidate and electrician Colin Reynolds by about four percentage points — a fraction of what outgoing MP Daniel Blaikie posted in this riding last time.
Polls suggest the NDP have been struggling to make a breakthrough with voters even as their main progressive opponent, the governing Liberal Party, is on a downward slide.
To this point, the biggest beneficiary of Liberal weakness has been Poilievre.
But Poilievre couldn’t pull off a win in Winnipeg, despite optimism from some of the party’s MPs that the Conservatives would take it with the NDP stuck in neutral nationwide.
Ahead of the final results in the byelection in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood-Transcona, New Democratic Party candidate Leila Dance thanked her team and family for their help and support during her campaign.
The Conservatives, however, performed much better here than they did in the 2021 general election, which suggests Poilievre’s popularity in opinion polls is translating into some success at the ballot box.
The NDP victory could be interpreted as a vindication of Singh’s decision to back out of a deal to prop up the Liberal government just days before this byelection.
NDP ends agreement with Liberals
Singh initiated the breakup to show voters he’s not beholden to Trudeau.
The decision to step away from the deal gave the party the opportunity to tell voters that a vote for the NDP is a vote for change.
Singh ripped up the agreement, saying the Liberals are out of new ideas and too soft on “corporate greed.”
Colin Reynolds, the Conservative byelection candidate in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood-Transcona, said his result in the byelection ‘was not what we were hoping for.’
Liberals, in turn, have accused Singh of abandoning progressive policies that haven’t yet cleared Parliament, including the promised pharmacare program.
Singh has also walked back his past support for the government’s carbon tax, saying he wants to propose an alternative that’s less punitive for consumers. Trudeau said Monday Singh caved in the face of Conservative criticism.
Liberal vote collapses in Winnipeg
The Liberal vote in Elmwood-Transcona collapsed.
The Liberal standard-bearer, Ian MacIntyre, is on track to post one of the worst byelection results for a candidate from the governing party in Canadian history.
The party was not expected to be competitive given it finished a distant third in the 2021 general election and polls suggest Liberals are a lot less popular now than they were then.
But the drop was still notable with the Liberal candidate taking less than five per cent of the vote — down about 10 percentage points from last time.