NDP declares victory in federal Winnipeg byelection, Conservatives concede

September 17, 2024 Canuck

The New Democrats declared a federal byelection victory late Monday in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood–Transcona.

Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle–Emard–Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Quebecois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.

“We don’t know the final result here today, but I’m confident,” the NDP’s Winnipeg candidate, Leila Dance, told supporters in a tearful speech Monday night.

“I promise to make you all so proud of me, and I will see you in Ottawa.”

With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.

While byelections aren’t usually credited with much significance on Parliament Hill, the votes in Winnipeg and Montreal are being treated as bellwethers of the political shifts happening in Canada.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is keen to leapfrog the Liberals and position himself as the only viable, progressive alternative to Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.

Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.

The New Democrats are not usually a contender in the Montreal riding of LaSalle–Emard–Verdun, but their candidate, Craig Sauve, jockeyed back and forth for first place with the Liberals and Bloc all night.

“As the results come in, we’re hopeful to get the victory here,” Sauve told a crowded room of his supporters Monday night.

“But if not, one thing is for sure: if the NDP is competitive in Montreal we’re going to win seats in Montreal, we’re going to have great candidates in Montreal, and Montrealers are going to are going to see more NDP MPs at the next election.”

The Bloc also took heart from the close race as the ballots were counted Monday. The party’s deputy House leader Christine Normandin said no one would have expected the Bloc to do well in the longtime Liberal stronghold at the start of the campaign.

“Any way the campaign would have gone, we could only win, we had nothing to lose,” she said.

“Seeing tonight that it is a tight race, in itself for us, it’s a win. And it shows that there is support for what the Bloc does and the issues that we’re bringing to the House of Commons.”

The Liberal candidate Laura Palestini meanwhile gave a speech thanking her volunteers just a little over an hour after the polls closed and early results showed her trailing in third spot.

“Thanks to your efforts, our message resonated,” she said in French at a Liberal gathering in Dilallo Burger, a Ville-Emard institution dating back to 1929.

“Perhaps tomorrow morning, early, we will hear what the people of LaSalle–Emard–Verdun want as their member of parliament.”

She departed shortly after.

Bloc candidate Louis-Philippe Sauve returned to his campaign party around 1 a.m. to give a speech to a crowd of enthusiastic supporters, as the results showed him in a dead heat with Palestini.

Montrealer Graham Juneau said that despite all the campaigning, he and many of his friends are “relatively disengaged.”

He opted to vote for no one, to make a point about “a lack of confidence in the political establishment in Canada.”

“At least amongst my peers, there hasn’t been a groundswell of enthusiasm for any of the particular parties,” he said.

Liberal ministers have visited the area several times as the party worked hard to keep the riding it has held for decades.

The stakes are particularly high for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who faced calls for his resignation last June when the Conservatives took over a Liberal stronghold seat in a Toronto byelection.

The loss sent shock waves through the governing party, as the Liberals were faced with the stark reality of their plummeting poll numbers.

Singh took a political gamble on signing a pact with Trudeau in 2022 to prevent an early election in exchange for progress on NDP priorities.

While that deal has yielded a national dental care program, legislation to ban replacement workers and a bill that would underpin a future pharmacare program, the results haven’t translated to gains in the polls.

Singh pulled out of that deal just weeks ago in a bid to distance his party from the Liberals and try to make the next election a two-way race between himself and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

Elections Canada warned on social media Monday evening that the results in the Montreal riding could take longer than usual to be counted because of the record number of candidates.

There are 91 names on the ballot, making it the longest list in the history of federal elections. Most are affiliated with a group protesting Canada’s first-past-the-post voting system.

“Results will be available tonight or early tomorrow. Thank you for your patience,” Elections Canada said on X Monday.

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