Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party has suffered a major setback in a special election for a Toronto district it has held for three decades, casting doubt on Trudeau’s leadership in advance of the general elections scheduled for next year.
Conservative opposition candidate Don Stewart was declared winner by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday morning after Elections Canada announced that he was leading with almost 600 votes (42.1 per cent) against the 40.5% of votes garnered by the Liberal candidate, even as all 192 polling stations were reporting results.
Since 1993, the Liberals have always been represented in St. Paul’s district of Toronto. Also, It is one of 338 districts that makeup Canada’s House of Commons.
This is not good news for Trudeau who lost in Canada’s largest city and home to him. And his party itself as they head into an election expected next fall in 2025.
“Justin’s position is seriously weakened inside the party,” Canadian historian Robert Bothwell said.
Bothwell said there had been solidarity with Trudeau’s leadership, noting some have just left the government rather than publicly grumble, but he expects comments now.
“The Liberals poured, and were seen to pour, everything they had into this one,” Bothwell said. “Bringing ministers down and mobilizing office staffs from Ottawa signaled desperation.”
Trudeau has announced he would run again in next year’s contest. However, despite being in power since 2015, the Trudeau Liberals are trailing badly after voting amid worries about cost of living.
Pierre Poilievre asked Prime Minister to hold a sudden general election after labeling it “a stunning upset” .
“Here’s what happened: no more going on like this,” X quoted Poilievre saying
For Nelson Wiseman who is professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, voters did not vote out liberals from their district. Because they liked Pierre Poilievre or his party more but because they loathed Trudeau even more.
According to Wiseman, the demand for Trudeau to announce that he would be quitting was now inevitable. “Like Toronto-St. Paul’s which is one out of only 40 seats liberals won in their worst ever result in 2011 if this riding can’t be won how can they expect to form a government?” He said.
In his opinion, the Liberal caucus that was already fretful will now go into some panic mode. The average shelf life of prime ministers since the 1950s has been about a decade; he noted
After almost a decade of conservative rule, Justin Trudeau restored Canada’s liberal identity in 2015. And was also responsible for opening doors for immigrants. As well as legalizing marijuana while fighting environmental pollution through carbon taxing.
Trudeau’s father Pierre swept to power in 1968 amid Trudeaumania and ruled Canada for almost 16 years.
