KOOP: Will open rebellion rise from ashes of Liberal by-election loss?

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By-elections are fun, exciting events that draw the attention of partisans and politics observers alike. Because of this, there is always a tendency to overstate the significance of any one by-election. The truth is they are snapshots in time and sometimes have no real consequences for what’s happening in federal politics.

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But, sometimes, by-elections reinforce or contradict what is happening in national politics, and so are worth picking apart. Monday’s two by-elections in Manitoba’s Elmwood-Transcona and especially the Montreal seat of LaSalle-Emard-Verdun reinforce some of the trends we are seeing in federal politics and clarify the challenges each of the parties and leaders are facing.

In LaSalle, the Liberals lost a longtime stronghold to the Bloc Quebecois, with the NDP candidate in a close third place. In Elmwood-Transcona, the NDP held onto a longtime party seat, although the Tories improved their vote share and standing in the seat.

By far, both the Liberal Party and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are the biggest losers of Monday’s by-elections.

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The Liberals have been plagued by tanking poll numbers for more than a year now. If an election were held today, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives would romp to victory. Whispers, but not yet outright rebellion, have plagued Trudeau’s leadership.

Concerns about Trudeau’s leadership intensified after a shock by-election outcome in June when the Liberals face-planted in a by-election in a previously-solid Liberal seat: Toronto-St. Paul’s. You have to go all the way back to 1988 to find the most recent election that the Liberals lost in this seat.

There are striking parallels between that by-election and Monday’s result in LaSalle. The seat has never before been won by a non-Liberal. It was represented by former justice minister David Lametti, who resigned last February after Trudeau dumped him from cabinet. Lametti scored 43% of the vote in the last election, compared to just 22% for his next nearest competitor. This area was previously represented by former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin.

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In other words, this is a reliably Liberal seat that Trudeau should have been able to hold on to. The loss reinforces concerns about Trudeau’s leadership and should lead to a fresh round of backbiting within the party. Whether this translates into open rebellion, which Trudeau has somehow managed to avoid thus far, is an open question.

Liberals may protest that the result in LaSalle was not so bad because their candidate, Laura Palestini, was defeated by less than a single percentage point: 27.2% to the victorious Bloc candidate’s 28%.

The Liberals may have been close but, as my grandpa used to say, close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades. Reese Bobby from the movie Talladega Nights might as well have been talking about Canada’s electoral system rather than NASCAR when he lectured his son, “If you ain’t first, you’re last!”

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Anyway, serious Liberals know that dropping from 43% support in the last election to 27% in a by-election is a disaster for the party, and Trudeau has to wear that. No wonder the Liberal candidate fled her campaign headquarters before the final tally of votes on by-election night!

The NDP nominated a high-profile candidate in Montreal who ultimately didn’t win but finished with a respectable third-place result in what turned out to be a close three-way race.

Meanwhile, in Elmwood-Transcona, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was put to the test in what has been an NDP stronghold for decades. This is a seat, however, that the Tories can win when the conditions are right, as they were in the 2011 election. Both parties ran well-organized by-election campaigns filled with enthusiastic volunteers.

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The Blaikie name famously holds sway in the communities of this seat. But, in this race, the NDP wasn’t running one.

Nevertheless, NDP candidate Leila Dance scored a victory with 48% of the vote compared to Conservative Colin Reynolds’ 44%. Contrary to expectations that the NDP vote share would fall in part due to Singh’s lack of unpopularity, the party largely held its own, dropping from only 49% support in the 2021 election to 48 in the by-election.

The result was close because the Tories impressively boosted their vote share in the seat, from 28% in the last election to 44% in this by-election. Meanwhile, the Liberal Party collapsed in Elmwood-Transcona. With only 5% of the vote, the Liberals are essentially a fringe party in this Winnipeg seat.

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Indeed, Elmwood-Transcona is a good reflection of what is happening in Manitoba provincial politics: largely straight competition between the NDP and Conservatives, with no room left for the Liberals. A coming redistribution which is seen to benefit the Conservatives will help to ensure that this seat is competitive in the next election.

So Monday’s by-elections produced a mixed bag of good and bad news for the parties and their leaders. But for Trudeau and the Liberals, the results were all bad: they lost what was previously a ruby red Liberal seat in Montreal and all but collapsed in Elmwood-Transcona.

Trudeau defiantly said prior to the by-election that he wouldn’t step down as leader even if his party lost in LaSalle, but the pressure on him to resign will continue to mount after these disappointing results.

— Royce Koop is a professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba.

Have thoughts on what’s going on in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada or across the world? Send us a letter to the editor at wpgsun.letters@kleinmedia.ca

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