By-elections are a unique event that allow all parties a chance to outsize impacts, either brutally reinforcing narratives or completely upturning them. While we’ve seen numerous by-elections during this current Parliament, most have been relatively inconsequential. That changed in June, with the surprise Conservative win in the long-time Liberal stronghold of Toronto-St. Paul’s. That bolt out of the blue increased the pressure on the governing Liberals to address voter discontent and address internal party malaise, while also confirmed much of the positive public polling for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.
That result left an indelible mark on our politics, raising the stakes even higher in the two by-elections that finished yesterday. Voters in the ridings of Lasalle-Émard-Verdun in Québec and Elmwood-Transcona in Manitoba got their time in the national spotlight, with a lot riding on the results for all parties. The night ended with Bloc Québécois candidate Louis-Philippe Sauvé winning in the Montréal-area riding of former Prime Minister Paul Martin, while New Democrat Leila Dance held the working-class riding in northeast Winnipeg.
For the governing Liberals, Monday night's results were another gut punch that cannot be denied. While the result in Montreal was a close three-way race, with no candidate getting more than 28% of the vote, a loss is still a loss. The red team saw its vote fall by nearly 16%, which is a number that cannot be ignored, especially when added to the loss in June. This was another seat firmly in the Liberal fold for decades, with the only exception being the NDP winning during the Orange Wave of 2011. When you add the Liberals dropping 10% of their previous vote in Winnipeg, to fall below 5% in this by-election, it all speaks to a government that will face increasing pressure to change leadership or more.
For the New Democrats, the night's results were a mixed bag. Holding onto Elmwood-Transcona is a good development for Jagmeet Singh’s leadership, as he was able to push off a relentless challenge from the Conservatives. Remember the only time the Conservatives have formed a majority government since the early 90’s, in 2011, the NDP actually lost this seat to the blue team. It was one of only two seats the NDP lost while having their best result ever in the party's history. The result in this Winnipeg riding will serve as a good study into if there is a limit to the current Conservative leaders approach, with electors not signing onto his vision in a low-stakes election that wouldn’t change the government. But for the orange team, the loss in Montreal is one that will sting. The party recruited a great candidate in local city councillor Craig Sauvé, the kind of candidate who can make all the difference in a race like this. Yet with that local advantage, the party was unable to win. Gaining 7% on their previous is good, but without the win, that will likely be soon forgotten. For this riding to make a big impact on the NDP’s fortunes, they needed a win, period. Only that win would have shown that the NDP is back in Québec and make it far easier to position the NDP to supplant the Liberals as the progressive option across Canada.
For the Conservatives, they can point to gaining vote share in both ridings as a positive. In Winnipeg, they gained 16% from their previous result, benefiting from the collapse of both the Liberal and People’s Party vote, and that cannot be ignored. And in Montreal, they gained about 5% while earning enough votes to get their campaign rebate. Those are positives that they can take away from this. But despite those results, they were not enough to win the day in Elmwood-Transcona. While good, last night's result didn’t match the 46% of the vote they gained in 2011 when they won the seat under Stephen Harper. If the point was to win that riding, it will be curious to see if there is any reflection about if the Conservatives current tone and approach could have been the deciding factor between a win and a loss.
And for the Bloc Québécois, a win is a win. It wasn’t pretty nor stomping, but it does show that the Bloc is still a force in the province. The presence of a strong Bloc in Québéc creates a lot of close, unpredictable three- and four-way races, which add a lot more uncertainty to the next election when it comes. Further to that, it makes the path towards a majority government that much harder for progressive parties, who depend on potential Québéc seats to win nationally.
When we put all of this together, all of the opposition parties come back to Parliament today with positives that they can point to and try to make into something more. But at the same time, all parties, including the government, come back with bigger worries and more unanswered questions that create the potential for a very raucous, loud and unpredictable Parliament this Fall. Rather than settle anything, these by-elections have ratcheted up the pressure on all parties and at this point that’s not likely to change, unless a major player in this equation decides to step aside. The only thing that seems more certain after last night is that we’re going to get an election sooner than later, and we’re all going to need to have our Tylenol on hand to deal with the headaches that are sure to come from all the noise before then.
