Anthony Housefather's dilemma in Mount Royal
A diverse riding would not be easy to win if he runs as a Conservative
Liberal MP Anthony Housefather says he is in “reflection” about his future with the Liberal Party, even contemplating crossing the floor over to the Conservatives. This comes after nearly the entire Liberal caucus (excluding Housefather) voted in favour of an amended NDP motion on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
A lifelong Liberal, Housefather now isn’t sure whether he still has a place in the party. He says that the Liberals have abandoned their traditional foreign policy position on Israel that had previously seen them in lockstep with the Conservatives. Calling himself socially liberal but a fiscal conservative in a recent interview on CJAD 800, the potential that Housefather crosses the floor appears very real.
But his chances of being re-elected in his riding of Mount Royal as a Conservative appear slim — and not just because this has historically been one of the safest Liberal ridings in the country for nearly a century.
Located on the island of Montreal and including the municipalities of Mont-Royal, Hampstead and Côte-St-Luc, as well as a portion of Côte-des-Neiges, Mount Royal has voted Liberal in every election since 1949, when its boundaries were first formed into something similar to those of today. Before that, the region had been consistently Liberal since 1935. Among its more illustrious alumni is Pierre Trudeau, who represented the riding from 1965 to 1984.
A former mayor of Côte-St-Luc, Housefather was first elected in the 2015 election, taking 50% of the vote. He was replacing long-time MP Irwin Cotler, who opted not to run for re-election after occupying the seat for 16 years. Housefather increased his share of the vote in both 2019 and 2021, winning with 58% in the last election. The Conservatives, who came within six points of beating Cotler in 2011, dropped to just 24.5% of the vote in 2021.
On the face of it, Housefather crossing the floor to the Conservatives would seem to put a significant dent in his re-election chances — if not rule them out entirely. The Conservatives have finished more than 30 percentage points behind in each of the last two elections, and it is rare for a floor-crosser to swing that much of the vote.
But Housefather has cited a few issues where his Liberal Party has been offside with the views of many of his constituents, namely the protection of minority English-language rights in Quebec and the country’s stance on Israel. He says he was alone on the former without having anywhere to go as all parties in the House supported the government’s recent changes to the Official Languages Act, but that on Israel he sees that the Conservatives are now closer to where he stands than where his party has positioned itself. And that’s what has sparked this “reflection”, saying he has felt “the pain of [his] constituents … on this issue and what happened with the vote on [the NDP motion].”
Both of these issues could be potent ones in a riding like Mount Royal, but the issue that is driving Housefather to question his party loyalty most might not be the one that alone could flip this riding blue.