Bye-bye byelections
Bruising defeats a clear sign Trudeau should head for the exit
The numbers tell the story in the two federal byelections held Monday: Voters are abandoning the Liberals. Beyond who won and who lost — for the record it was the NDP in Winnipeg and the Bloc Quebecois in Montreal — the fact is the Liberal vote collapsed in both ridings.
The reaction from Justin Trudeau the morning after?
“We need people to be more engaged. We need people to understand what's at stake in this upcoming election,” Trudeau said as he walked into a cabinet meeting.
“The big thing is to make sure that Canadians understand that the choice they get to make in the next election about the kind of country we are really matters.”
Seems Canadians made their choice again, and it wasn't Trudeau or his party.
The Liberals had said they were confident about winning Montreal's Lasalle-emard-verdun. This riding should be part of Fortress Montreal. It was previously held by David Lametti, who served as Trudeau's justice minister until recently and was held by former prime minister Paul Martin.
Losing Lasalle-emard-verdun is an embarrassment for Trudeau. There is no way to spin this.
In the 2021 election, Lametti took 42% of the vote with the Bloc in second place at 22%. On Monday, the Liberals fell 15 points to 27% support while every other party saw their vote share increase.
The NDP had hoped to win the seat but came up third moving from 19% support to 26%. The Bloc took 22% in the last election but won on Monday night with 28% of the vote.
Even the Conservatives, an afterthought in this race, increased their vote share by 55% from 7.45% to 11.6%.
In Winnipeg's Elmwood-transcona, the NDP held a seat they've now taken in 11 of the last 12 elections, but it was close. The NDP candidate took 48% of the vote, just shy of the 49% of the vote in the 2021 election, with the Conservatives jumping from 28% last election to 44%.
The Liberals meanwhile collapsed from 15% voter support in 2021 to 5%. That support didn't move from the Liberals to the NDP, but from the Liberals to the Conservatives.
That result is closer than the NDP would like but it does show they were right to tear up the coalition deal with Trudeau. One of the many reasons Singh and his team pulled out of the coalition was the anger they were hearing from supporters and would-be supporters in the Elmwood-transcona byelection.
Singh is trying to portray himself as the only person, and the NDP as the only party, that can stop Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives. Had the NDP lost Elmwood-transcona, that argument would have been lost. That the race was so close in an NDP stronghold may weaken Singh's argument, but it doesn't eliminate it.
The Liberal result in both byelections is a real problem for the PM and his party. Unlike Toronto-st. Paul's, the bottom fell out for the Liberals in Montreal, while in Winnipeg, former Liberal voters moved en masse to support the Conservatives.
Canadians are sending a clear message to Trudeau, he's just refusing to listen.
The PM has a bunch of international travel coming up with the United Nations next week, the Francophonie summit in Paris in early October, followed by the ASEAN summit in Laos and the Commonwealth heads of government meetings later in the month. Perhaps he will use these meetings to say goodbye to his international friends. Perhaps he will use the trips to secure a job at the UN or some other international body.
For the millions of Canadians wanting a change and calling for an election, that may be the only hope to send Trudeau packing.