Conservatives take Liberal stronghold in last-minute Toronto by-election victory

Hours after Canadians went to bed disappointed in a Stanley Cup loss Monday night, the Tories scored a stunning by-election upset to win in the old liberal stronghold of Toronto-St. Paul’s.

Conservative candidate Don Stewart won by just 590 votes over Liberal Leslie Church in an early morning upset, snapping a ride the governing Liberals have championed for more than 30 years.

Pierre Poilievre called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to call a snap election after what the Conservative leader described Tuesday as “shocking outrage” on social media.

“Here’s the verdict: Trudeau can’t go on like this. He needs to call an election now on the carbon tax,” Poilievre told X.

Stewart followed Church for hours overnight as poll workers slowly counted ballots that were stacked with independent candidates, thanks to a protest group trying to make a point about the first-past-the-post system.

Stewart tried to sound upbeat when he visited his campaign office around 11:30 p.m., but failed as polls showed his opponent holding a steady lead.

“Let’s not give up,” he said.

The results reversed just before 4 a.m. ET, when the Tories went into the lead with just three polls left to count.

Independent candidates, including dozens of members of the Longest Vote Committee protest group, won a total of more than 1,100 votes, accounting for about three percent of all votes cast. The Liberals lost to the Conservatives by a margin of 1.6%.

The curtains were drawn on Stewart’s campaign office, a ground-floor unit in downtown Toronto, on Tuesday afternoon. A handwritten note – “Thank you St. Paul’s!!!” — was stuck to the window.

The newly elected politician also thanked his supporters and volunteers in a post on social media on Tuesday.

“The results sent Justin Trudeau a message loud and clear: He’s not worth the cost,” Stewart said in a post on X, echoing a Conservative slogan.

At an unrelated announcement in Vancouver, Trudeau said it was not the outcome the Liberals wanted, “but I want to be clear that I hear people’s concerns and frustrations.”

“These are not easy times. And it’s clear that I and my entire Liberal team have a lot more work to do to make tangible, real progress that Canadians across the country can see and feel.”

After the announcement, Trudeau left as reporters tried to ask questions.

The results represent a massive victory for Poilievre and his Conservatives, who have not won a seat in Toronto proper since 2011.

Church said he plans to stand again as a Liberal candidate in the next general election.

“Yesterday’s voters in the Toronto-St. Paul’s sent us a clear message that they want us to regain our trust,” Church said in a statement posted on X Tuesday.

“They want a government that lives up to its promise to be there for them.”

The race was widely seen as a must-win for Trudeau, and defeat could trigger calls for him to step down after 11 years as Liberal leader.

The Liberals’ defeat is a blow to a party already down in the polls. The vote shows the polls reflect reality, said Scott Reid, who worked as communications director for former prime minister Paul Martin.

“I don’t think it’s possible to overstate how significant this byelection loss is,” Reid said.

“Its implications could be vast for the government, for the prime minister, for the timing of the next election. I mean, this is a Yahtzee.”

Typically, when the Tories do well in cities, it’s because the New Democrats have turned away the support of left-leaning voters, said Ginny Roth, a Conservative strategist who served as Poilievre’s communications director during his race for lead.

That was not the case in Monday’s by-election, when the Liberals and Conservatives went head-to-head and the NDP candidate garnered just 11 percent of the vote.

The NDP never expected to take the riding, said Anne McGrath, a senior aide to leader Jagmeet Singh. She said it had always been a “polarizing fight between liberals and conservatives.”

But if the same holds true for other places in the country, it could change the strategic dynamics of the next election, Roth said. “It’s a very exciting and exciting prospect for the Conservatives who, I think, can now point to a very broad coalition of support.”

The pageant was Stewart’s first choice. The financial executive has close ties to the Conservative party as a long-time organizer and former colleague of Jenni Byrne, an informal Poilievre adviser.

Toronto-St. Paul’s, in the downtown area, includes some of the wealthiest addresses in Toronto, as well as an above-average number of tenants and one of the highest concentrations of Jewish voters in the country.

Carolyn Bennett, the former Liberal cabinet minister whose resignation in January triggered this by-election, has won the seat for the Liberals nine times and by more than 20 percentage points all but once.

But the Liberal campaign has been challenged by an irascible electorate that has lost patience with Trudeau amid rising inflation, unaffordable housing and a spike in hate crimes since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

The Conservatives appealed to the Jewish community in the riding during the race, urging them to vote for the Conservative candidate to send a message to Trudeau about what they describe as silence in the face of rising anti-Semitism.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 25, 2024.

— With reporting from Mia Rabson, Stephanie Taylor in Ottawa, Mickey Djuric in Ottawa, Brieanna Charlebois in Vancouver and Sheila Reid in Toronto

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press