Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the riding office of Laura Palestini, Liberal candidate for LaSalle–Emard–Verdun, in Montreal, on Aug. 11.Peter McCabe/The Canadian Press
For Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the results of Monday’s by-elections are simply a disaster. A once-safe seat in Montreal has been lost, complementing the loss of an equally safe seat in Toronto three months prior. The Liberals face a shellacking in the next election.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc-Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet now have conclusive evidence that the governing party is mortally weak, that the sooner they combine with the Conservatives to bring it down, the sooner they could reap the political benefits.
These are not simply by-election results. The political terrain at the federal level is undergoing a tectonic shift. We could be in an election campaign within weeks.
In normal times the Montreal riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun is among the most secure of Liberal seats. Former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin represented Lasalle-Émard from 1988 until he retired from politics in 2008. Former justice minister David Lametti won the reconfigured riding comfortably in 2015 and 2019. In 2021, he had a cushion of 10,000 votes.
But after he was shuffled out of cabinet, Mr. Lametti resigned the seat, forcing an eventual by-election. And then in June, the Liberals lost one of the safest Liberal seats in the land: Toronto-St. Paul’s. Suddenly all eyes were on LaSalle-Émard-Verdun. Both the Bloc-Québécois and the NDP felt they had a shot.
It didn’t help the Liberal cause that more than 50 ministerial staffers refused to campaign for the party in the riding because they believed the government is too supportive of Israel in its war with Hamas. NDP candidate Craig Sauvé produced a pamphlet prominently featuring the Palestinian flag.
Bloc canvassers reported a genuine enthusiasm at the door for the party’s sovereigntist message. The Parti Québécois is in first place, provincially.
The Liberals knew going into the by-election that a poor result in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun would be an even bigger shock for the party than the loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s. Mr. Trudeau is, after all, a Montreal MP.
On Monday night, the Liberals found themselves in an astonishingly tight three-way race with both the Bloc and the NDP. None of the three parties commanded even 29 per cent of the vote. Though there may be a recount, the Bloc-Québécois appears to have taken the riding away from the Liberals by the narrowest of margins.
LaSalle-Émard-Verdun lost! On top of Toronto-St. Paul’s! There is not a safe Liberal seat in the land. No not one.
For Mr. Singh, the night was encouraging. Though the NDP came third in the Montreal riding, they were only a few hundred votes behind the winner. Mr. Sauvé told his supporters Monday night that the NDP is now competitive in Montreal. Certainly they are more competitive than at any time since Mr. Singh became leader.
Even better, the NDP held Winnipeg’s Elmwood-Transcona, despite a strong challenge from the Conservatives.
The riding had been owned by either Bill Blaikie or his son Daniel, almost without exception, for decades. The Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre have been working hard to win working-class votes away from the NDP. A win in Elmwood-Transcona would have offered proof those efforts were paying off.
But though the Conservatives came close, it wasn’t close enough. They will find consolation in the fact that their vote share was up in both by-elections. But losing Elmwood-Transcona was the first bad news Mr. Poilievre has received in some time.
Mr. Singh’s message to non-sovereigntist progressive voters has been clear: the Liberal Party is a spent force. Only the NDP can properly challenge the Conservatives. The results in Montreal and Winnipeg reinforce that message.
They also suggest to both the NDP and the Bloc that the sooner the country goes into a general election, the better things will be for them and the worse things will be for the Liberals.
Mr. Trudeau has vowed to stay on, regardless of the by-elections results. But the situation is dire. Not only is the result in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun the worst possible news, in Elmwood-Transcona they took five per cent of the vote, 10 points below their 2021 result. Five per cent of the vote for a governing party?
Many of the candidates in these two by-elections will be fighting a rematch in the next general election. Given these results, that could be soon.