(Ottawa) The Liberal Party of Canada easily won the ridings of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount and Winnipeg–South Center in Monday’s by-elections.
What there is to know
- By-elections were held in four ridings across the country.
- The Liberal Party and the Conservative Party retained their seats.
- The leader of the People’s Party, Maxime Bernier, bites the dust in Portage-Lisgar.
As expected, the Conservative Party for its part succeeded in keeping the two other ridings where voters were invited to the polls, namely Portage-Lisgar and Oxford. But the victory was less convincing in this last riding located in Ontario, yet considered a Conservative stronghold for several years.
In the Montreal riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount, the victory of Liberal candidate Anna Gainey, daughter of former Montreal Canadiens player Bob Gainey, was quickly confirmed. At the time of this writing, M.me Gainey won almost half of the vote (48.4%), while three candidates – Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault, New Democrat Jean-François Fillion and Conservative Mathew Kaminski – vied for second place with around 14% of the vote each.
Mme Gainey, who was president of the Liberal Party of Canada and previously worked for ministers in the former Liberal government of Paul Martin, will therefore enter the House of Commons and succeed Marc Garneau, former Minister of Foreign Affairs who left politics in March.
In Winnipeg South Centre, where a record 48 candidates were running for election, Liberal Ben Carr had no trouble winning. Son of former cabinet minister Jim Carr, who died last December, Mr. Carr had nearly 52% of the vote at the time of writing. Conservative candidate Damir Stipanovic was a good second with only 23.6% of the vote, while New Democrat Julia Riddell came third with 17.8%.
In Manitoba’s other riding of Portage-Lisgar, People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier bit the dust for the third time since he launched his party in 2018. He tallied just 18.2 % of the vote, far behind the Conservative candidate Branden Leslie, who rode to victory with 63.6% of the vote. In the last federal election, the candidate of the People’s Party of Canada in this riding obtained the best result for his party in the country, winning 22% of the vote.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Leader of the People’s Party of Canada and defeated candidate in Portage–Lisgar, Maxime Bernier
It was in the constituency of Oxford that the fight was closest. Conservative candidate Arpan Khanna was elected with 42.2% of the vote, closely followed by Liberal candidate David Hilderley, who won 36.4%. Incumbent MP for that riding, Dave MacKenzie, caused a surprise by endorsing the Liberal candidate, furious that his daughter Deb Tait lost the nomination meeting and the party dropped a candidate with few ties with the constituency.
The results of these by-elections were not likely to call into question the forces present in the federal capital. A minority in the Commons, the Liberal Party now holds 158 seats, the Conservative Party, 117 seats, the Bloc Québécois, 32 seats and the New Democratic Party, 25 seats. The Green Party holds two seats, and there are three independents.
More by-elections to come
On Sunday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced another by-election on July 24 in the riding of Calgary-Heritage, Alberta. This constituency has been vacant since the resignation of Conservative MP Bob Benzen last December. Mr. Trudeau did not call this by-election at the same time as those held on Monday because provincial elections were recently held in Alberta.
Voters in the riding of Durham, Ontario will also lose their MP by the end of the week. Former Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole announced in the spring that he would step down at the end of the current parliamentary session on June 23. Mr. Trudeau will therefore have to call a by-election in this riding in the coming weeks.
In a farewell speech last week in the House of Commons, Mr. O’Toole issued a heartfelt warning about the dangers of social media to Canadian democracy.
“We are becoming the chosen ones who judge our worth by the number of likes on social media, instead of the number of lives we change in the real world. Spectacle politics fuels polarization, the display of virtue replaces discussion, and far too often we use the House to generate video clips rather than to start national debates,” Mr. O’Toole said in a tone solemn.
“Social media didn’t build this great country, but it’s starting to destroy its democracy,” he said.