A breakdown of the stunning Tory win in Toronto–St. Paul's
CBC
Conservative candidate Don Stewart captured the longtime Liberal stronghold of Toronto–St. Paul's in a byelection Monday that could have far-reaching implications for the Canadian political landscape.
With a federal election looming in 2025, the unexpected Tory win raises questions about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's future at the helm of the Liberal Party — and whether any Liberal-held seat is truly safe from being flipped.
CBC Toronto's Dwight Drummond sat down with political analyst and polling expert Éric Grenier to break down what the result could portend for next year.
You can watch the full discussion in the player above.
"If they lost Toronto–St. Paul's, there are a lot of ridings around the country that the Liberals could lose that they wouldn't have lost before," Grenier said during the interview, which aired on CBC Toronto's new 24/7 streaming channel.
The Liberals have held the seat since 1993, and won it by considerable margins in every election since then. Voters in Toronto–St. Paul's even stuck by the party in 2011, when the Liberals won just 34 seats nationwide, Grenier pointed out.
If similar trends and swings in vote share were to happen in the city's 24 other ridings, the Liberals would likely lose about half of them, Grenier added.
"There has to be some change in the Liberal party if they have any chance of improving in the polls, their status in the next election, because if they continue this way, there are going to be a lot of Toronto–St. Paul's in 2025," he said.
With the B.C. NDP and B.C. Conservatives neck and neck heading into election day on Saturday, there are also a record number of Independent candidates who — if voted in — could hold the balance of power in a minority government scenario. British Columbians have only elected one Independent MLA in the last 60 years. Vicki Huntington won a seat in 2009 and was re-elected in 2013. But University of the Fraser Valley political scientist Hamish Telford said the situation could be different this election cycle. Of the 40 Independent candidates running, six of them are incumbent MLAs, who carry the benefit of name recognition in their community. "So we've got Independents in this election who I think we could deem to be viable shots at actually winning a riding, which is not normal," Telford said. "They're still long shots, but they are certainly plausible candidates."
Though Bill C-282 has received cross-party federal support in Ottawa, Alberta's provincial government says it's not a backer of the Bloc Québécois legislation that aims to prevent Canada's supply-managed sectors — dairy, poultry and eggs — from being included in future international trade negotiations.
A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder and 15 others are facing criminal charges for allegedly running a drug-trafficking operation that shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to Canada and used violence — including murder — to achieve the group's goals, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday.