Weekly Writ 4/9: More than majority at stake in upcoming byelections
Marilyn Gladu's floor-crossing lessens the hype, but there's still lots up for grabs in Monday's byelections.
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The addition of yet another Conservative MP to the Liberal caucus has made a majority government all but assured for Prime Minister Mark Carney once Monday’s byelections are completed, but these contests will nevertheless matter more than most byelections do.
For one, they will act as mid-term barometers of support for each of the parties and a rough accuracy check for the polls — if a party is up or down in the polls, we should expect them to be up or down in the byelections, even when the differences don’t change who wins or loses.
But, more importantly, these three byelections will change the complexion of the House of Commons and the control that Mark Carney’s Liberals have over it.
With Gladu, the Liberals now have a majority in the House of Commons. There are currently 171 Liberals in the House, with one of them (Francis Scarpaleggia) acting as the Speaker. This gives the government 170 votes, with Scarpaleggia able to cast a tie-breaking vote when required. But since the Speaker is bound by convention to vote in certain ways, Scarpaleggia’s vote can’t always be counted upon to be in the government’s favour.
There are currently 169 opposition MPs in the House, meaning the government technically has a majority as of this moment (though the House isn’t sitting this week). This is where the three vacancies being filled on Monday come in.
If the Liberals fail to win any of these three byelections (which is unlikely, as we’ll see), the Liberals will once again be outnumbered in the House. If they win one of the three byelections, the government and opposition benches will be tied at 171 votes apiece, with that tie being broken by Scarpaleggia. As the Speaker votes to maintain the status quo, that means the government would be safe from defeat in the House (assuming every MP votes). But it would also mean that the government would not get to do something like re-constitute the membership of committees, where the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois hold majorities.
If the Liberals win two or all three byelections, they will have 172 or 173 votes to 170 or 169 for the opposition and the Speaker would have no ties to break. In this scenario the Liberals would not only be safe from defeat but should also be able to pass a motion to change the make-up of committees and pass any legislation they like that would not put the Speaker in an awkward position.
In other words, going two-for-three would be good enough for the Liberals, even if it means only winning the two seats that should be safe for them. Going three-for-three would be icing on the cake — and give something extra for the Liberals to brag about when the House returns next week.
Take a look at the results from the last election. Terrebonne was famously close — it was decided by a single vote, a margin so insignificant that the Supreme Court ruled to annul the results because of errors Elections Canada made with some mail-in ballots. But Scarborough Southwest and University—Rosedale were not close at all. The Liberals should win them, so going two-for-three is the least they should expect.
The margins in the two Toronto ridings were enormous in the last election and there is nothing in the polls to suggest they should be competitive today. Failure to win either of them would be a tremendous upset and blow to the Liberals, regardless of the implications for the House. The Liberals have held at least part of what currently makes up University—Rosedale since 1993 and, with the exception of the 2011 election, the Liberals have held Scarborough Southwest and its predecessor ridings since 1988. Losing them in the current context would be bizarre, especially since the party has put up two good candidates in high-profile physician Danielle Martin in University—Rosedale and former Ontario NDP MPP Doly Begum in Scarborough Southwest.
But Terrebonne was close last time and should still be close this time. My own projections classify Terrebonne as a toss that favours the Liberals by a single percentage point. That’s effectively unchanged from the overturned result of the general election. Monday will be a re-match between the Liberals’ Tatiana Auguste and the Bloc’s Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, and if the result is anything other than a nail-biter it would reflect some local dynamics at play that swung it one way or the other.
(Because of the presence of the Longest Ballot Committee, who have put up more than 40 candidates in Terrebonne, voters will have a special ballot where they will be required to write-in the name of the candidate.)
A win for the Liberals in Terrebonne would signal that Carney’s appeal in Quebec has endured, and that voters in this particular riding did not bristle at the thought of handing the prime minister a majority government. It would give Liberals reason to hope that, if they went into an early election campaign, they could count on winning a lot of seats in Quebec once again.
A loss here, however, would put into question the security of ridings in Quebec that they won by narrow margins. While the polls look promising for the Liberals elsewhere, uncertainty about their holdings in Quebec would force the Liberals to make good in an election on some of the very high (and perhaps unsustainable) numbers they’ve been putting up in places like British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. It would be folly for the Liberals to take for granted that they will gain a dozen seats or more between Vancouver and Winnipeg.
There are implications for the other parties as well. The Bloc’s standing as the main alternative and opposition to the Liberals in Quebec will be diminished if they don’t win back this former stronghold, especially in light of the help the party has gotten from the Parti Québécois as it prepares for an important provincial election in October.
Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives have just suffered another blow with the loss of their fourth MP. Plus, they need some sign of a comeback after months of bad polls. They are not competitive in any of these three ridings. But can they improve their vote share, put some doubt in the polling numbers and give a discouraged and disgruntled caucus some much-needed good news?
The New Democrats are even more uncompetitive in these ridings, having finished in third place in the two Toronto seats and taking just 2.6% of the vote in Terrebonne. But they have a new leader in Avi Lewis. It would be a good start for him if he could show at least some improvement over the abysmal 2025 results, especially in Toronto where his message should have more appeal.
These three ridings, however, are quite different from one another — which will make it a little tricky to draw conclusions about broader trends.
While 83% of the population of Terrebonne does not belong to a visible minority community as defined by Statistics Canada, 43% of the population of University—Rosedale and 63% in Scarborough Southwest does. University—Rosedale has a significant Chinese community (18%) and a sizable Jewish one (6%), while Scarborough Southwest has a large South Asian component (26%) and is 19% Muslim. About 10% of the population in Terrebonne and 13% in Scarborough Southwest is Black, while it’s just 4% in University—Rosedale.
The vast majority of residents in Terrebonne speak French at home. The vast majority of residents in the other two ridings, of course, do not. University—Rosedale is right downtown (it’s where Queen’s Park is located), while Scarborough Southwest is an inner suburb of Toronto and Terrebonne is an outer suburb of Montreal. One of the only things tying these three ridings together is that they aren’t rural.
But the variation in these three ridings will make the results all the more fascinating to dissect. So, join me and my podcast co-host Philippe J. Fournier for a livestream of the byelection results starting at 8:30 PM ET on Monday night. You’ll find the livestream right here 👇
Have any predictions for what the outcome of the three byelections will be? Let us know in the comments!
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
Where things stand in the CAQ leadership race, plus I hear back from the Six Nations on the removal of that name from the riding of Brantford—Brant South. We also have some numbers on advance turnout from the byelections and some news on political fundraising out of Newfoundland and Labrador, where everything is legal.
Only a couple of federal polls this past week, plus some numbers on how provincial opposition leaders are viewed and where things stand in Ontario.
#EveryElectionProject: The 1954 Ontario Liberal leadership.
LIBERAL CONVENTION - I’ll be on CPAC from Montreal over the next few days as part of their coverage of the federal Liberal party convention, so tune in! And, if you’re there, come say hello!
NEWS AND ANALYSIS
New Quebec premier, CAQ leader to be decided Sunday
This weekend, some 20,000 members of the Coalition Avenir Québec will choose the next leader of their party and the 33rd premier of Quebec. While the winner of the race between Christine Fréchette and Bernard Drainville will receive what is, on paper, a glittering prize, the reality is that the winner will also face a steep, uphill and perhaps insurmountable challenge when Quebec goes to the polls in October.
That being said, what does the data say about who is most likely to win?