The Decibel - By-election tests: The NDP passed. The Liberals failed.

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

On Monday, voters in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood-Transcona and Montreal’s LaSalle-Émard-Verdun went to the polls. The results saw the Liberals lose another safe seat and the NDP narrowly beat out the Conservatives. Marieke Walsh, The Globe’s senior political reporter, explains exactly how much the opposition parties gained on the Liberals in Montreal, and how the battle between Blue and Orange went down in Winnipeg. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Earlier this week, there were two by-elections that put the federal parties and leaders to the test. Yesterday's by-elections were a choice that Canadians made. Canadians in the former liberal strongholds of Toronto and Montreal have now given their verdict. It is very interesting as a result. There's more work to do and we're going to stay focused on doing it. The first by-election was in a Winnipeg riding, seen as an NDP stronghold. And the other one was in Montreal, historically a safe seat for the Liberals. When results came in early Tuesday, the Liberals lost their seat to the Bloc Québécois.

Meanwhile, in Winnipeg, the NDP narrowly beat the Conservatives to keep their riding. But there's more to these results than just who won and who lost. So The Globe's senior political reporter, Marika Walsh, is going to explain exactly what happened

in each of these races and their significance in the bigger political context. I'm Manika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Marika, great to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. So we are going to get into the results of these by-elections and talk about what they mean. But before we do that, Marika, can you just set up, like, why should Canadians outside of these ridings care about these two by-elections? These are significant by-elections, not just for the Liberal parties,

but also for voters, because it's a reality check and a verification of what the national public opinion polls are saying actually on the ground among the electorate. So these are now two liberal strongholds that the government has lost in three months, one in Toronto, one in Montreal. Both of those cities are essentially liberal fortresses. They are the places where liberals chart their path to victory. And so if they're losing there, there are serious questions across the country about where they can still hold on. Okay. And Monday night was actually quite late for results. They're especially slow to trickle in from the Montreal race. And I understand this may have had something

to do with the ballots. Can you just tell me about that? Yeah, it wasn't quite as late a result as we saw in Toronto St. Paul's, which I think was declared sometime between 4 and 5 a.m. Wow. The next day in June. But we got a result around 2.30 a.m. on they have about the first-past-the-post system that we live in by sort of trying to disrupt the vote process. You'll remember that in 2015, when Justin Trudeau was just the third-place Liberal Party leader and not the Prime Minister, he promised electoral reform. That was one of his key promises that he broke

in his first mandate. And we are still in a first-past-the-post system. And interestingly, the results in Montreal show just why some people are so critical of the system, because somebody was able to win the riding to now represent all constituents in that riding with less than 30% of the popular vote. Yeah. And of course, we know usually in a by-election is a lower voter turnout than in a general election. So I guess I wonder how representative are these results of the wider voter trends? I think they are representative in part because, yes, turnout in a by-election is lower, but when you actually look at the turnout around 40% in Montreal, for example, and also around 40%, 39.08% to be precise, in Winnipeg, that is still a bit higher than normal in a by-election. And it can't be understated how

much effort the Liberals put on the ground in Montreal to win this riding. Depending on which source you talk to in the Liberal Party, they had between 400 and 500 volunteers on the ground on Monday to get out the vote. And that is not even close to the numbers you would see in a general election when your volunteers are spread out across the country. And so if you are not able to get the vote out when you have that many resources, it almost raises more questions for the Liberals. That's a really interesting point. Yeah. Let's focus on the rioting in Montreal then here, Marika, and talk a little bit more about specifics. I guess, what do we need to know about this rioting to give us some context here?

This rioting is almost hallowed ground for the Liberals. It is a rioting that was held by former Prime Minister Paul Martin for two decades. It's a rioting, importantly, and as a sign of what might be to come and why Liberals are so worried now, that they have only lost twice previously in the last four decades. One in the Brian Mulroney sweep in 1984 and the second time in the 2011 NDP orange wave. You mentioned Paul Martin, of course, this was also the writing that was held by the former liberal justice minister, David Lamedi, who resigned earlier this year after he was removed from cabinet.

So big names have had this riding. Big names have had the riding, Menaka. And really interestingly, and there's this sort of sliding door scenario that I'm not sure how many people in the prime minister's office are thinking about today. But the by-elections in both Toronto St. Paul's and La Salle-Marte Verdun, the two that they have lost in the last three months in longtime historic liberal strongholds, were both forced as a result of the prime minister booting these ministers from cabinet a year ago. If you think about that context and the butterfly effect in life, you do have to wonder whether they are rethinking some of those decisions. Certainly, actions have consequences. And the liberals, I think, when they were making these decisions last year, in fairness to them, were in a very different place in the public opinion polls. The public opinion polls last summer in July still showed them essentially

neck and neck with the conservatives. And in that context, you could understand that they didn't think that they would be putting stronghold seats like La Salle, Mar de Verdun or Toronto St. Paul's at risk with these decisions. But boy, have things changed a year later. Yeah. Wow. And we've talked about the Toronto St. Paul's race a little bit here. Just reminding people this was at the start of the summer. This is how the Liberals started their summer by losing that seat in June and now kind of bookended at the end of the summer with losing the seat in Montreal. Let's talk about the results of this Montreal race, Marika. So this ended up being a very tight race between the liberals, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP.

The Bloc ended up winning it. What does that win tell us? The win tells us a few things. First of all, that the liberal base is not holding in Quebec. That's the most important one. The liberals chart their path to victory through Toronto, the GTA, and Quebec. And if they're not holding their base in Toronto or Montreal, it does spell challenges for them. Interestingly, rather than the anti-liberal vote coalescing around one party, it kind of splintered. And that's why you saw the three-way race. So the NDP early this summer were setting expectations extremely high that they could win this riding from the liberals in this by-election. And instead, the Bloc Québécois won.

The difference between the first place candidate, Louis-Philippe Sauvé of the Bloc Québécois, and the third place candidate, Craig Sauvé of the NDP, is just two percentage points. So think about that. Louis-Philippe Sauvé won with 28% of the vote. Laura Palestini of the Liberals came in second, just 248 votes behind him. And then the

NDP's Craig Sobey won 26.1%. So you see how tight that race was, what a nail biter it was. Honestly, this is like a truly embarrassing disclosure of my nerd level. But, you know, at 2.30 a.m., there was still one poll left to report in LaSalle-Marver-Dunn, and I couldn't sleep because I just needed to know the result, and it was way too close to call without that poll being released because a couple hundred votes are all that decided this election. So it raises questions for the liberals about their ground game. Why couldn't they find those extra 300 votes? But it also raises questions for the NDP, because if in Quebec the anti-liberal vote goes to the Bloc and not the NDP,

it will make it more challenging for Jagmeet Singh to make the case that he is the progressive alternative to Pierre Polyev, that he has said he is in the wake of his decision to revoke the NDP's automatic support of the liberals in the House of Commons. The biggest challenges are for the liberals, who not only face a weakened position internally, but also face an emboldened opposition parties in the House of Commons. So that being said, what is the mood like or what do we know about what the mood is like inside the party in the aftermath of these results? Well, there's a public mood and a public vibe, and then there's a private vibe. Interesting. So when you listen to the prime minister and other ministers scrums on Parliament Hill,

the message is to keep calm and fight on. In one way, the Liberals have managed the expectations and the fallout of LaSalle preemptively in advance in a way that they did not with Toronto St. Paul's. Toronto St. Paul's was a shocking, surprising loss to liberals, in part because expectations were set that they still believed they could hold on to it. But ahead of LaSalle, the prime minister made it very clear that even if they lose, he's staying on. And liberals made it very clear that they were nervous and skeptical that they could

actually hold on to the seat. And so nobody is waking up in shock or shell shocked from the result as they were in Toronto. However, internally, the prime minister's office and liberal headquarters are trying to convince sort of the average person within the Liberal Party, Liberal staff, that this isn't that significant, that it actually shows that the race in the general election will be very tight because it was a tight three-way race in LaSalle. And I don't think that is landing how the prime minister's office wants it to land. I don't think the staffers I'm talking to really believe that this shows a tight election and not that the liberals

are in serious trouble if they were to go to the polls in a general election right now. People among the Liberal Party outside of the Ottawa bubble are very concerned that now the NDP, the Bloc and the Conservatives will all see more incentive to prosecute a general election campaign while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is still the leader of the Liberal Party and not give them time to replace him. The last thing I'll add on the Montreal results is that while the Prime Minister's office is hoping to downplay it, one pollster who we spoke with, Philippe Fournier, who runs the poll aggregator website 338canada.org, pointed out that LaSalle is even worse for the Liberals than Toronto St. Paul's because it now shows a trend rather than just an aberration. It makes it that much more difficult to make the case that this is recoverable when chips are falling in such key areas one after the other. And it's important to note that there are more key by-elections coming up, both in Halifax for the liberals and in B.C., where their prospects are worse to hold on than it was in LaSalle.

We'll be right back. Okay, so we've talked about the liberal loss in the Montreal riding. Let's now turn our attention to the Winnipeg by-election, Marika. This was happening on the same day in a riding called Elmwood Transcona. What do we need to know about this riding? Well, just like LaSalle is a liberal royalty, Elmwood Transcona has New Democrat Orange royalty. And what I mean by that is that the Blakey family has essentially represented it for decades, except for one or two cases where they were not in play. First, Bill Blakey represented the riding for decades, and then the NDP lost in 2011 during the conservative majority government win. And then they won it

back in 2015, very narrowly, when Daniel Blakey, Bill Blakey's son, decided to run for the seat. So what's interesting about this riding, and what makes it very different from Toronto and Montreal is that this is an example of a rotting in which areas, northern Ontario, southwestern Ontario, B.C., Vancouver Island, where the fight is orange blue. And so this was really seen as a test of that fight and of where those two parties are. Pierre Polyev has been trying very hard to make inroads with unionized, blue collar, workingclass Canadians in the hopes of trying to eat into that NDP's support. And so the NDP were really put to the test in this riding. It was absolutely a must-win riding for them, as Montreal was for the Liberals, except that they were able to hold on against this tougher race rather than losing it. So let's talk about the results here that we saw in Winnipeg

then. So they held on to the seat with 48.1% of the vote, and the Conservatives came in second with 44% of the vote. So Mariko, what should we make of that vote split? So to start, this is absolutely a win for the NDP. They were able to fend off the conservatives, despite the fact that the conservatives nationally are pulling way ahead of the NDP. And despite the fact that when the conservatives were doing so well, more than a decade ago in 2011, this was a seat that the conservatives won. So from those two perspectives, the NDP held their own. However, it was a narrow result. It was within five points. And the conservatives from the sources I spoke with before the election took place,

what they said is that if they were able to get within five points in Winnipeg, they believed that meant that other ridings that the NDP need to win would be much more at risk, and that they believe they will have easier inroads elsewhere. So in a sense, you could see this as both parties spinning it as a win for them. The conservatives are spinning it as a win by the fact that they narrowed the gap and that NDP have a win because they held their own. They did not face the liberal fate of losing a stronghold. Hmm. And in the weeks leading up to this by-election, we did see NDP leader Jagmeet held their own. They did not face the liberal fate of losing a stronghold. And in the weeks leading up to this by-election, we did see NDP leader Jagmeet Singh kind of make a few announcements here, right? Of course, he withdrew from the supply and confidence deal,

which was supporting the liberals. But he also recently made comments about being against the consumer price on carbon, which is also known as the carbon tax. So Mariko, what was the thinking here? Like, were these things expected to help the NDP keep the seat? I think there's a few things at play. Conservatives went to extreme lengths in the Winnipeg riding in particular to blur the lines between the liberals and the New Democrats to tie Jagmeet Singh as closely as possible to Justin Trudeau in the hopes that that would turn into more of a referendum on the government than a vote between the NDP and the conservatives. For the first time that I can recall in a by-election or in any election, for example, the conservatives were using lawn signs that didn't feature the conservative candidate or even conservative branding.

It instead featured this cutout of Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau shaking hands in a black and white photo with an orange backdrop that said, vote against sellout Singh, NDP Trudeau carbon tax. So that sort of paints a picture for you of how much the NDP support of an unpopular government had hit a nerve, that people were putting those signs on their lawns shows that in a way that I think people in Ottawa may not have realized, right? Like once you see it playing out on the ground, it's different than how sort of the machinations in Ottawa happen. So there was certainly some criticism of the NDP for pulling out of that deal when they did, because it came on the heels of the Conservatives suggesting they do so. And because it tied everything to the by-election, it upped the stakes, according to one NDP strategist for Jagmeet Singh, in the need to then win that by-election. It upped the stakes, according to one NDP strategist for Jagmeet Singh,

in the need to then win that by-election, because if he pulled out of the deal and then still lost it, he would be owning that more than if he could just blame Justin Trudeau for it. On the carbon tax, I think that is a bit of a different egg because Mr. Singh has since the spring actually distanced himself from the consumer. And it, of course, blew up in part because the liberals so strongly attacked him for it, saying that that proved that they are the only progressive alternative, the only ones fighting for climate change. Of course, we know that many governments have climate plans without a carbon price. You just have to look south of the border to Joe Biden, who was a key ally for Justin Trudeau. So, you know, we'll see how that shakes out. But I don't see that as part of the NDP strategy to win the by-election in the same way that we saw the decision to end the deal with

the liberals was. So just lastly here, Marika, I'm sure a lot of people are wondering about this. With the results of these two by-elections, how much are they going to play into the timing of the next general election? I think that's the big question. And it's something that liberals today are actually quite worried about. One liberal told me that their understanding is that part of the reason why the NDP ripped up the deal with the liberals is to make it more difficult for the prime minister to resign as liberal leader and to have the time and space for a leadership campaign. Because the government could fall at any moment now, basically. Exactly. All of these parties, the bloc, the NDP, and the conservatives now have their own proof points of Justin Trudeau's own lack of popularity and the

Liberal Party's lack of popularity. They see that as their best path to victories or to at least growing their parties in the House of Commons at the expense of the Liberals. And there is much more uncertainty for them if that person at the top of the Liberal Party changes. For an election to be triggered, the goals and political strategy of the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc need to align because all three need to vote the same way to bring down the Liberals. And so some Liberals today are thinking, well, maybe that strategy is more aligned because they see their opportunity to make inroads at the cost of the Liberals. On the flip side, the NDP did not do as well as they were hoping to do in Montreal. And the Bloc have still said they're open to negotiating with the Liberals.

So there might be some horse trading going on. There certainly will be. And the question is, how much are the liberals willing to give up in order to stay in government? And how much is the desire to ensure they run, the opposition parties run against Justin Trudeau going to shift that calculation? Marika, always great to have you here after a very late night of reporting. Thank you so much for doing this. Thanks so much. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms.

Today's episode was edited and mixed by Allie Graham. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.