A shocking upset win by the Conservatives in Toronto’s byelection has some Liberals calling for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step down, but the federal leader isn’t going anywhere.
Many went to bed last night assuming that Liberal candidate Leslie Church would take the win, as she narrowly led the race against Conservative Don Stewart. But in the middle of the night, results dramatically flipped and Steward took the lead.
According to Elections Canada, Stewart had won 15,555 votes or 42.1 per cent of the vote, while Church had 14,965 votes or 40.5 per cent. Only 590 votes separated the two.
Conservatives snatched the riding away from the Liberals, with a mere 1.6-percentage point margin of victory, representing a major seat loss for the federal Liberal party which has dominated all ridings in the city since 2015.
NDP candidate Amrit Parhar garnered 4,044 votes, or 10.9 per cent, while Green Party candidate Christian Cullis earned 1,059 votes, or 2.9 per cent.
Trudeau released a statement following the Liberal loss, applauding Church for running a strong, positive campaign and congratulating Stewart on his victory in the tightly fought race. He also directly addressed Toronto-St. Paul residents, saying that he understands their frustrations and seemingly implied that he’s not faltering from his position.
“There are not easy times. And it is clear, I and my entire team have much more hard work to do to deliver tangible, real progress that Canadians can see and feel,” the prime minister said in the statement.
CANADIANS EXPRESS FRUSTRATION WITH TRUDEAU
Some Liberals are calling for Trudeau to step down, believing that the race exposed how many Canadians are feeling about the prime minister’s 11-year reign. Many are surprised after Church, who was backed by Trudeau, several cabinet ministers and MPs from coast-to-coast, lost and say it signifies that the federal leader’s time is up.
“It is time for Justin Trudeau to gracefully resign,” Paramount Fine Foods owner Mohamad Fakih said in a post on X. “The loss in St. Paul’s is emblematic of what Justin Trudeau is doing to the country and the brand of the Liberal Party.”
“It’s too common for party leaders to overstay their welcome and it only serves the opposition party,” leadership speaker Bobby Umar replied in agreement. “If he cares about the country or party, he should.”
Andrew McDougall, an assistant professor in political science at University of Toronto said he found the Conservative win very surprising, as Liberals held a decades long stronghold in the riding. He says it’s unclear what Trudeau’s next steps will be, but the results of the byelection will definitely make things more difficult for him to continue as the country’s future leader.
“It’s certainly going to make it harder for Trudeau to make the case that he should be the person leading the party into the next election, and it will embolden those who say he should step down,” McDougall explained.
“He’s signaled that he intends to lead the party into the next election and it’s also unclear that even if he did step down there is another person who could do a better job. While this result certainly makes Trudeau’s life more difficult politically it’s far from certain that it will lead him to quit.”
This is a major win for the party, as the Toronto-St. Paul’s riding has not elected a Conservative since 1988. Some are suggesting that this will be a huge shakeup for the Liberal party and are hopeful it will lead to the Prime Minister’s resignation.
“If the Liberal party can’t see after this that the voting population is pissed off then nothing can help them,” a user said on Reddit. “This should be the biggest wake up call ever, this riding has been red for decades.”
“Hopefully this kicks up enough dust to get rid of Trudeau before the main election,” another user wrote.
WHAT GAVE CONSERVATIVES THE UPPERHAND?
University of Toronto professor Nelson Wiseman, however, said he doesn’t believe these results specifically will be a wake up call to the Liberals, as the winning margin was very narrow and the party already knows they aren’t favourable to many as proven by past polling yielding consistent negative results. Wiseman says although he’s unsure if Trudeau would consider resigning, mounting pressure on the federal government would definitely speed up the process.
Wiseman says he can’t pinpoint an exact reason for Stewart’s win, citing several issues Torontonians face such as inflation, immigration, and the federal government’s response to the Israel-Hamas war as to why the vote may have slightly swayed. He says, however, he was surprised to learn that 45 per cent of residents in the riding are renters.
“There’s people who’ve seen their rent skyrocket in the last two to three years and they’re probably quite unhappy. And even though the federal government may not be to blame for it, they’re not happy and when you’re not happy, you generally vote against the status quo,” Wiseman explained.
Another thing Wiseman says he was surprised by was the high the voter turnout for the byelection was, sitting at about 44 per cent.
“That’s very unusual for a byelection. In fact, I think it’s a higher turnout than there was in the last Ontario general election, which Doug Ford got elected. And that tells me that a lot of people were motivated, and that Conservative voters were more motivated to go out and vote than traditional Liberal voters,” he said.
Many have also attributed Stewart’s win to a demographic of Jewish voters. A letter from the Conservative party was sent out to members of the Jewish community in the Toronto-St. Paul’s area claimed that Trudeau’s silence in speaking out against hatred “driving a wave of antisemitism” and “putting Jewish communities at risk.”
The letter that has been obtained by Now Toronto calls the prime minister a coward and complicit and prompts that voting for Stewart will send a message to Trudeau about his “betrayal” to the Jewish community.
“Generally the sentiment is that Trudeau has been too lax on issues regarding antisemitism and Don Stewart was campaigning hard on that,” a Reddit user wrote. “Not only was Conservative support very high in our area but so was turnout. An extra 4000 or so Jewish votes for Conservatives is really all that is needed to explain the swing in this election.”
A Reddit user who identifies as Jewish said they voted against Trudeau for the first time, as well as their family and friends. The user cited the rise of antisemitism in the community, including a family member’s synagogue being vandalized, with little federal action as one of their reasons for voting Conservative.
“A lot of that feeling of “betrayal” is not just from the political party but from left-leaning groups that Jews no longer feel welcomed in. These are people who Jews have always marched shoulder to shoulder in support of but now feel betrayed by those same people,” another user explained. “The liberal values are still there but the feeling of being accepted and safe within the group has greatly deteriorated.”
