National Post (National Edition)
No more safe spaces for Liberals
THIS WASN'T JUST
A BYELECTION. IT
WAS A REFERENDUM.
— TERRY NEWMAN
The results are in. Bloc candidate Louis-Philippe Sauvé is now MP for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, toppling the previously Liberal strongholds of these newly merged ridings. This means the upcoming October 2025 election is now in “blowout territory,” resulting in the Liberal party being reduced to as few as 50-65 seats, according to poll aggregator 338Canada.
All political parties eventually lose power, but they usually maintain their safe ridings. This outcome is a testament to just how unhappy voters are with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's leadership, which is trailing 20 points in the polls. The Liberal government is seen as widely out of touch, and obsessed with boutique identity issues, as the country faces multiple overlapping problems, including soaring housing prices, inflation, crime and disorder, and a stuttering economy.
Voters have had it, and although Trudeau has said he will stay on as leader, until an election scheduled for next fall (if a vote isn't forced earlier) the calls for him to resign will only grow louder now.
The Liberal loss in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, as well as June's loss in Toronto—Saint Paul's, another stronghold, suggests that support for the Trudeau government has not simply waned, it has evaporated. Voters in these ridings are refusing to be thought of as “safe.” Both byelections had dozens of protest candidates, with Monday's ballots featuring 91 names, 79 of which ran to protest Trudeau's 2015 broken promise of electoral reform.
There are simply no more safe spaces for Trudeau's Liberals. No ridings are “safe” from the effects of poor leadership and a riding's “safeness” should never be presumed.
Former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair learned this lesson in 2015, when he made the mistake of assuming that the seats his party won during the “Orange Wave” of 2011 would be held in 2015. Rather infamously, he's quoted as saying, “The NDP only needs 35 more seats to defeat Stephen Harper, the Liberals need at least 100 more to do that.” As a result, the NDP lost 43 of the 59 seats it previously gained in Quebec. In response, the party ousted Mulcair, its strongest debater and most qualified MP, from leadership. The lesson — never assume Quebec, or any riding, is yours.
Montreal ridings are typically a Liberal candidate's to lose, and they rarely do.
Montreal is Trudeau's home. Its airport is named after his dad. His family legacy, or what's left of it, resides there. These are the most stubbornly Liberal-friendly ridings in the country. If you were to ask people why they vote Liberal, they probably couldn't answer. They just do. These are the ridings and votes the Liberal party have historically been able to rely on the most. But the winds are changing and Trudeau knows it.
Perhaps that's why Trudeau took drastic and desperate actions in LaSalle— Émard—Verdun to ensure his pick, Laura Palestini, would be the Liberal candidate for this byelection to, I assume, make him feel safe, although it is unclear why she was the pick.
Palestini's post began with a scandal. Although she was elected to Montreal City Council for the same area she hoped to represent federally, Trudeau did not appear to trust that Palestini would be the riding's first choice if other candidates had been given the chance to compete for the nomination. And so, there were no open nominations. Palestini was hand-picked and Trudeau-appointed. So much for representative democracy.
Would-be-candidates in the riding, had already done the work of knocking on doors and signing up new members, only to find they wouldn't be given a chance to run. Reportedly, they were “shocked” by Trudeau's undemocratic move of bypassing the nomination process. They shouldn't have been. This is a man who has turned the government of Canada, not just the Liberal party, into a vehicle for his own ego, tossing allies overboard whenever it suits him.
Let's not forget why we had this byelection in the first place.
David Lametti was a loyal party member — a safe bet in a safe riding, but Trudeau took for granted that he would remain on to run in the 2025 election after being shuffled out of his cabinet position as justice minister. For a while, Lametti thought he might stay on, too. But Lametti's feelings for Trudeau clearly changed sometime after the shuffle, like the feelings of voters in the ridings of Toronto—Saint Paul's and LaSalle—Émard—Verdun.
According to Lametti, he left his “dream job” with “mixed emotions” and suggested the constituents of his riding, “and I am one of them — would benefit from a change of voice and style.” Well, he certainly got his wish Monday evening.
There are no more safe spaces for Trudeau's Liberals. No physical or emotional place exists where they will be protected from the judgments of Canadians for their mounting scandals, unkept promises, and all-around poor governance. Safe ridings are disappearing and previously loyal MPs are abandoning ship long before their past-due dates. This wasn't just a byelection. It was a referendum on Trudeau and his Liberal government, and they lost.