No Seats Change Hands in Federal Byelections

No seats changed hands after four byelections on June 19. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

There were no upsets in the four by-elections held across Canada on June 19. With almost all of the polls reporting, all of the ridings stayed in the hands of the party that held them before.

Perhaps the most watched contest was in the southern Manitoba riding of Portage-Lisgar. That’s where Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC), was trying to win his party’s first seat in Parliament.

Instead, Branden Leslie of the Conservatives easily held the riding. With most of the polls in, Leslie held a commanding lead of more than 63 percent of the vote, compared to about 18 percent for Bernier and the PPC. That’s a bigger margin of victory than former Conservative Leader Candice Bergen’s win in 2021, when she took about 52 percent of the vote in Portage-Lisgar. Bergen stepped down earlier this year, prompting the by-election. Losing the riding would have been a significant blow for the Tories, and a big victory for the PPC.

It’s a setback for Bernier, a former cabinet minister in the government of Stephen Harper. The Quebec politician had hoped to make a breakthrough in the rural Manitoba riding.

In a broadcast on Facebook, Bernier told supporters neither he nor his party plan on fading away.

“We can be proud of our campaign,” said Bernier. “Of course, the result is not the one we would have preferred.”

However, Bernier said the campaign was a way to make his party’s policies better known and understood.

“When the general election comes, we will be better prepared than ever before, because I can tell you already: We are not going [anywhere] … We are not fading away. We are in fact stronger than ever.”

Leslie will serve as the MP for Portage-Lisgar until the next general election, expected no later than 2025.

In Manitoba’s other by-election, the Liberals have held onto the riding of Winnipeg South Centre, left vacant after the death of Liberal cabinet minister Jim Carr last year. His son Ben Carr, a school principal, held the riding for the Liberals, with about 52 percent of the vote, compared to 24 percent of the vote that went to Conservative Damir Stipanovic.

The riding has voted Liberal for 10 of the last 11 elections.

The Winnipeg South Centre by-election is also remarkable because there were 48 candidates on the ballot—the most candidates in a single riding in Canadian history, according to Elections Canada. Most of them were Independents.

The Montreal riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Westmount has long been a Liberal stronghold, and that did not change with the election of Anna Gainey, who won about 48 percent of the vote. The runners-up were the Green Party and the NDP—both of whom took around 14 percent of the vote.

Gainey is a former president of the Liberal Party of Canada, and a policy adviser to two ministers of national defence.

The by-election was called after the retirement of former cabinet minister and astronaut Marc Garneau.

The mostly rural riding of Oxford in southwestern Ontario has been a fairly safe Conservative seat. That did not change, with the election of Conservative Arpan Khanna. With about 80 percent of the polls in, Khanna had about 42 percent of the vote, or a lead of some 1,500 votes, edging out Liberal Dave Hilderley, who received about 36 percent of the vote.

The by-election was triggered when former Conservative MP Dave MacKenzie stepped down earlier this year.

The by-election results mean none of the 338 seats in Parliament will change party affiliation. Currently, the minority Liberals govern through a confidence and supply agreement with the support of the NDP.