Trudeau's Liberals face another big test in Montreal byelection
NDP, Bloc Québécois hoping voters tired of Trudeau will help them take long-time Liberal seat
The federal Liberal brand will be put to the test again in a byelection in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun on Sept. 16 — a contest Liberal Party brass hope won't deliver a repeat of the party's failure in a Toronto riding earlier this summer.
The Liberals' byelection loss in Toronto-St. Paul's — a riding the party had held for more than 30 years — prompted a lot of soul-searching and griping among Liberal MPs who interpreted the result as a rebuke of their leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Some voters in Toronto-St. Paul's told CBC News they saw the byelection as a referendum on Trudeau and that a loss there should be seen as his cue to leave after nine years in office.
That's how Montreal voter Mary Ann Davis, a former school commissioner, is feeling about the upcoming byelection in her riding.
"People are not happy with the Liberals. They're not happy and they're basically saying, 'I'll vote for anybody but the Liberals,'" she said.
"I think Trudeau should resign. I'm voting NDP this time, that's for sure."
Frederick Dejean, originally from France, said Trudeau fatigue is part of the reason why he's also voting for the NDP.
"Trudeau has spent a long time in Ottawa, so maybe it's time for him to leave the place and let someone else step in," he said.
Trudeau has so far hung on to the top spot despite some entrenched opposition and has dismissed calls to step aside or shake up his cabinet and staff. He's promised a renewed focus on policy over politics and personalities.
But the LaSalle—Émard—Verdun contest is all about politics — and holding off challengers from the NDP and Bloc Québécois looking to take another longtime Liberal seat and deliver another body blow to Team Trudeau.
"This election is about Justin Trudeau's record. People want to send a strong message to Ottawa and I want to be their voice," Louis-Philippe Sauvé, the Bloc's candidate, told CBC News.
"I think that voting Bloc is a good way to protest and I'm going to knock the hell out of the doors in this riding."
More than half (about 58 per cent) of the riding's residents are francophones, according to census data.
About a quarter of the riding's residents — roughly 23 per cent — list English as their mother tongue. The LaSalle portion of the seat has a sizeable Italian-Canadian community.
That demographic mix historically has favoured the federalist Liberals in a part of the province that has overwhelmingly voted against Quebec independence.
The Liberals have won the riding in the last three elections, but the party's hold on this part of southwest Montreal goes back much further than that.
The communities that make up this seat have been represented by Liberals — including former prime minister Paul Martin — for most of the past century. Two notable exceptions were the period in the 1980s when Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives dominated, and a brief interlude after the Orange Wave swept a number of Quebec NDP candidates into office in 2011.
Montreal city councillor Craig Sauvé said he's running for the NDP because he wants to recreate some of the magic that sent so many New Democrats to Parliament back then.
"There are a lot of votes coming to us from disaffected Liberals and Bloquistes who would like to see the Liberals lose this election. I think we're the best positioned right now in this three-way race," Sauvé said in an interview.
"We're putting everything we have into winning this seat to make Quebecers say, 'Oh yeah, the NDP can win,'" he said.
An NDP victory here would be a huge upset — the party's candidate got less than 20 per cent of the vote and finished a distant third in the last general election. There's currently only one NDP MP from Quebec.
Craig Sauvé has represented part of this riding at city hall for more than a decade. He said that means he has the name recognition and the organizational strength to take the seat from a wounded Liberal Party.
Sauvé is telling voters that if they send him to Parliament, he will help expand nascent social programs like pharmacare and dental care, which were created after the NDP pressured Trudeau to act in exchange for propping up the Liberals in Parliament.
He's also trying to capitalize on Arab, Muslim and Palestinian anger over the Liberal government's position on the Gaza conflict. He is promising to pressure the government to more forcefully condemn Israel over how it's carrying out its war in that territory. The NDP also has been calling for Canada to immediately recognize Palestinian statehood.
Muslims make up about 5.5 per cent of voters in the riding, according to Statistics Canada census data from 2021.
More than 50 disaffected Liberal political staffers, mostly of Muslim or Arab origin, wrote a letter to Trudeau last month stating they would not aid the party's election efforts in this byelection due to what they called the government's insufficiently pro-Palestinian stance.
"We have less seats than the other parties but we're getting more results. If we weren't there, it would be a very different result," Sauvé said.
But the NDP's ability to extract more from the governing Liberals is now in question, after party leader Jagmeet Singh ended the supply-and-confidence agreement that delivered some progressive policy victories in the current minority Parliament.
Laura Palestini is the Liberal candidate who's hoping to replace former justice minister David Lametti as the area's MP. Lametti cruised to victory in the 2021 federal election with a 20-point edge over the second-place Bloc.
Palestini, who has been a city councillor for 20 years, said voters can count on the Liberals to deliver results with or without NDP support.
Though the Liberals are struggling in the polls nationwide, Palestini said she's had a positive reception from voters here in this pocket of Montreal.
"I'm doing the doors and I'm very well received," she told CBC News.
While she conceded there are some who are tired of Trudeau, Palestini said she doesn't let that get her down.
"I'm spending this election focusing on me. My name is on the ballot and I'm there to get myself elected. I'm the person that needs to put the effort in to make sure that people know who I am, what I stand for, where I come from and what I'm aiming to do," she said.
She is promising voters that if they send her to Ottawa, she will focus on boosting the economy, bringing down the cost of living, building more homes and finalizing pharmacare and dental care.
"Canada has been through some very difficult years. The last couple of years have been very challenging. People have the right to have their opinions about our prime minister, but we've had some very good, energizing conversations about what I can do once I'm elected to make a difference," she said.
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As for the political staffers who are declining to help her campaign over Gaza, Palestini said they have a right to their opinion.
"I respect that and I don't expect anybody to get involved if they feel that there is a reason that makes them uncomfortable," she said, adding she has her own team of local volunteers ready to help her out.
And she has received support from Quebec-based cabinet ministers who have campaigned by her side, including Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez.
Sean Robb is one voter who's willing to cut the Liberals some slack — but he's still going to go for NDP candidate Sauvé in this byelection.
"I don't think Trudeau's done a terrible job at all. I think the hate against him is overblown," Robb said. He praised Trudeau's management of the pandemic and the resulting economic fallout, adding it would have been challenging for any leader.
"I've yet to see anyone, even from the NDP, frankly, who would be a better prime minister for the country," he said.
So why isn't he voting for the Liberal candidate?
He said he thinks the NDP candidate could be a force for good and an agent for change.
"Trudeau has been in power for a long time. It's a normal thing that when people are in power that long — the tide tends to turn against them," he said.
- Do you have questions about this byelection or what it could mean for the next federal election? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca.
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