The Liberals’ defeat in the Montreal stronghold comes on the heels of another surprise byelection loss nearly three months ago in Toronto–St. Paul’s, where the Conservatives won in the riding previously held by the Liberals for over three decades.
LaSalle–Émard–Verdun
The Bloc’s Louis-Philippe Sauvé, an administration and communication professional, narrowly won the mainly three-way race in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun with 28 percent of the vote. Running against him were Montreal city councillors Laura Palestini, representing the Liberals, and Craig Sauvé, representing the NDP, who received 27.2 and 26.1 percent of the vote, respectively.The riding was most recently held by former justice minister and Liberal MP David Lametti. He announced his decision to step away from politics at the beginning of the year after representing the riding since 2015.
The Liberals had previously triumphed in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun during the past three elections and had largely dominated the region for the better part of the past 100 years.
In the 2021 election, the Liberals’ Lametti won the riding with a wide margin, taking in 42.9 percent of the vote, while the Bloc’s candidate came in at a distant second with 22.1 percent.
While thanking party activists and the other candidates, Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet called his candidate’s victory in the Sept. 16 byelection a historic win.
“Thank you to the voters for campaigning, thank you for listening, thank you for the chance to represent you. We will be worthy of your trust. Well done Louis-Philippe!”
The NDP also celebrated the close race in the riding, where they are not generally a strong contender.
“If the NDP is competitive in Montreal we’re going to win seats in Montreal, we’re going to have great candidates in Montreal, and Montrealers are going to see more NDP MPs at the next election,” Sauvé told supporters.
Elmwood–Transcona
In Winnipeg, the NDP’s Leila Dance with 48.1 percent of the votes edged out the Conservative’s Colin Reynolds with 44 percent.The byelection was considered a test for the NDP, which had won 10 of the 11 general election votes in the riding since 1988, making Elmwood–Transcona an NDP stronghold.
The Sept. 16 victory for the NDP came with a much smaller margin against the runner-up Conservative compared to the 2021 election. In that vote, the NDP’s candidate won with 49.7 percent of the votes, about 21.6 percent higher than the Conservative rival who came in second. In the Sept. 16 byelection, the NDP candidate’s vote count was just over 4 percent higher than the Conservative candidate’s.
The NDP’s Dance is the executive director of the Transcona business improvement zone (Transcona BIZ) and formerly worked in the not-for-profit sector, while the Tory’s Reynolds is a construction electrician.
“Our movement is growing — and we’re going to keep working for Canadians and building that movement to stop Conservative cuts before they start. Big corporations have had their governments. It’s the people’s time.”
Pressure on Liberals
Ahead of the Sept. 16 byelection, Trudeau had told Montreal radio station CJAD 800 on Sept. 13 that he won’t be stepping down if his party loses the Montreal stronghold, saying that it would mean “we’ve got even more work to do.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got to fight to lead against people who want to hurt this country, who want to hurt our communities, and who want to take the country in directions that, quite frankly, are exactly the opposite of where the world needs to go,” he said.
The loss in the previously Liberal stronghold of Toronto–St. Paul’s in June, combined with weak showing in polls as the Tories continue to surge, had led to some current and former Liberal MPs saying Trudeau should step down as leader.
More recently on the sidelines of the Liberals’ caucus retreat in Nanaimo, B.C., Quebec Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès said “dozens and dozens” of her constituents say Trudeau should go, though she said she herself doesn’t want him to step down. But other Liberal MPs put on a unified front coming out of the retreat, saying they support Trudeau as leader.
Voter Turnout
The voter turnout in Winnipeg’s Elmwood–Transcona was 39.1 percent, with 28,261 of the total 72,325 registered voters casting a ballot.In Montreal’s Salle–Émard–Verdun, turnout was 39.7 percent, with 31,711 of total 79.966 registered voters taking part.
The numbers don’t include those who registered on election day.
The vote count in the Montreal riding took relatively longer due to a record 91 names on the ballot. The ballot, the longest in Canadian federal election history, was largely made up of candidates affiliated with a group protesting Canada’s first-past-the-post voting system.
A similar protest move by the group in the June Toronto–St. Paul’s byelection caused even longer delays for the vote count.
For the Sept. 16 byelection, to reduce delays, Elections Canada said it has taken a number of steps.
Spokesperson Matthew McKenna told The Epoch Times that these steps included advanced votes being counted four hours before polls close, hiring additional election workers, dispatching headquarter staff to the electoral districts to help with the count, and conducting additional tests of the systems to reduce delays.
