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The Liberal Loss in Toronto Is Seismic
Why this Conservative byelection victory is crushing for Trudeau and team
The Conservative Party of Canada shocked the Trudeau government by winning the byelection in the riding of Toronto-St. Paul’s, a Liberal stronghold for the last 30 years.
Back in 2021, former MP and cabinet minister Carolyn Bennett, now Canada’s ambassador to Denmark, won the riding by a whopping 24 points.
Bennett won a total of nine elections in the Toronto riding before resigning. This time around, Don Stewart defeated Liberal candidate Leslie Church by 590 votes. Church was the former chief-of-staff for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
The victory by rookie candidate Stewart is in line with dismal national poll numbers for Justin Trudeau, in which the PM trails Pierre Poilievre by 21 points. The upset victory makes Stewart a giant killer, and gives the Conservatives their first seat in Canada’s most populous city.
Going into the contest, neither candidate had big name recognition in the riding, and Church was not the Liberal party’s first choice to contest the seat.
As surprising as Stewart’s upset victory is, there was cause for the Conservatives to be optimistic about their chances in a riding where victory for the Liberals has usually been a slam dunk.
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