Canadian by-elections, 2020

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Ottawa-Vanier probably one of the safest Liberal ridings in Ontario so easy Liberal hold.  Orleans was a decade ago a bellwether but at both federal and provincial has trended solidly Liberal.  Considering how much Tories have fallen since election, if they couldn't win it in 2018, no way they do now.

Actually, that "belwetherness" for Orleans was borderline and momentary--if anything, its present Lib-dominant status (provincially and federally) is a return to hereditary form for what's always been, on Franco-Ontarian grounds, inherently a party stronghold.  It's just that the PCs won it for a term in 1999, and kept on offering competitive bids on those fumes forever after, but never quite making it.

And even federally, the Conservatives' Royal Galipeau never managed much more than a 6-point margin, not even vs the Iggy disaster in 2011.

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Okay, at this point, very early in the standings: in OV, Lib well ahead, the NDP's so far solidly in second (with numbers consistent w/2018) and the PCs struggling vs Green for a distant third--though in that riding, it may depend on *where* the polling stations are coming from.

In Orleans, so far also a Lib landslide--and the Tories and NDP virtually tied for a distant second--and unlike Vanier, the polling stations tend to follow a consistent pattern there.  Ford backlash *really* taking its toll here...

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My thoughts are:

Liberals: Great night won both solidly so while a lot can happen between now and next election at least looks promising.

NDP: Did okay as weren't realistically going to win either seat, but at least didn't implode as badly as some feared.

PCs: Disastrous night.  Were never going to win either, but their share of the popular vote was worst than they got federally and in fact I believe worst showing in those two since at least 1990 or 1987 and both those elections were disastrous for PCs.  So they have a long road ahead if they want to win in 2022, which I am not sure if they can, at least not with Doug Ford as leader.

Libs in Vanier was somewhat reversion-to-mean predictable; it's interesting that they in fact did better in Orleans--something which bodes well for Del Duca as a "suburban default option" kind of Lib leader.  (Though the "Liberal ancestrality" of Vanier has in fact been subtly degrading for some time--or at least it isn't quite as monolithic as it was in the 80s, particularly as demographics diversify beyond the Franco-Ontarian).

NDP: lost mild ground in Vanier; but again, a bit on reversion-to-mean grounds, plus its being a non-high-priority seat allowing leakage to the Green camp (which itself has a certain latent urban-progressive base here).  But given how their recent byelection pattern in seats like Orleans (which are more genuinely "no hope" cases rather than "suppressed support" a la Vanier, i.e. in the UK the Lib Dems, not Labour, would be the nominal non-Tory option here) has been throwaway-abysmal--that is, single digits, even *low* single digits--for them to push 15% and even, it would appear, threaten or actually overtake the PCs for second in some megapolls is genuinely impressive; that is, even if they're to return to being a "third party" for any reason, Andrea Horwath's base isn't fatally imploding any time soon.  (Then again, when one examines closely, the NDP:PC ratio in Orleans wasn't *that* much different from 2018.)

PCs: disastrous indeed--that is, they shouldn't have been fighting off the NDP for second in Orleans, *and* they shouldn't have been fighting off the Greens for 3rd in Vanier.  (As for the Greens: it'd seem like Schreiner's performance--and maybe vestigial fumes from Elizabeth May's 2019 campaign--have gone some ways to validate that bottom-feeding option.)

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York Centre is probably the most favourable to Tories of 416 seats so if the Tories are going to win any seats in 416, this would be one of the first to fall.  By same token looking at current polls, pretty sure Liberals would easily hold this at the moment.  Nonetheless if Tories want to be competitive in the GTA, this is pretty much a must win and if they cannot win here or at least come close that shows how big a trouble they are in and that problem runs much deeper than leader.

Though it's a very qualified form of "most favourable", attached almost entirely to the Jewish rightward swing over the past generation--keeping in mind that prior to said swing, YC was "nuclear Liberal" (staying Grit in the 1984 blowout, going 70% in the Chretien years, etc), and that the "natural condition" of everything W of the Allen Road remains Liberal a la Humber River-Black Creek.  And in recent years, the Jewish swing's been matched by a Chinese-Canadian rightward swing, which is why the 2019 Lib-Con margins were marginally narrower in both Willowdale and Scarborough-Agincourt.  (It didn't help that the Cons' 2019 YC nominee was a "Scheer socon" rather than a Jewish-community figurehead.)  The "diversifying" effect of gentrification and urban intensification also doesn't necessarily work in the Cons' favour, either.

It *might* be interesting, though, if a presumptive-party-leader Peter MacKay uses this as a springboard back into Parliament--don't know what his "friend of Israel" credentials are...

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I wonder if the fabled Mark Carney might be brought home to run for the Liberals in YC? On the Tory side it could also be a place for Leslyn Lewis to go for a seat

As much as I'd love to get Leslyn Lewis into parliament, she'd be a pretty bad fit for the seat, like our last candidate. I'd stick her somewhere in the northern GTA or maybr Scarborough Agincourt if we limit the options to Toronto proper.

She *could* go over well with the Ford National nonwhite-ethnoburbans in the Downsview end of the seat--or at least, that'd be the Cons' alibi for running her there.

Personally, I think either the Mississauga-western or ScarbDurham-eastern GTA would be a better bet than the north for a candidate like her.

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 While Rural Ontario is generally fairly safe, probably wants to avoid a repeat of what happened to John Tory in 2009.

Next door to the aforementioned York Centre, Peter Kent in Thornhill is getting up there in years.  And just because so-and-so happened to John Tory in 2009 shouldn't ward off *all* Con contenders in Ontario.

Though yes, a seat in the West might bolster MacKay's cachet in a region where he's been regarded as "tragically Eastern"...

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Almost certainly a Liberal hold. They love to run star candidates there. However, the riding has good demos for the NDP, and it's full of "promiscuous progressives". It went NDP by 26 points in the last provincial election. Still, they would need a star candidate, and throw everything at the riding to pick it off.

I think as long as Liberals are ahead of NDP, they should easily hold this.  Only flips if NDP pulls ahead of Liberals which I don't see happening anytime soon.

Even if the NDP can't pull ahead of the Libs *nationally*, they can pull ahead in spot situations like a byelection--think of Dan Heap in Spadina in 1981.  In any event, with the excision of Rosedale in the last redistribution, the NDP is now pretty solidly entrenched as the primary nominal opposition to the Libs in TC--and that psychology (plus provincial coattails from Suze Morrison) can mean a lot.

Though there is a twist; TC is where reported federal Green leadership frontrunner Annamie Paul ran in 2019 (and where *another* Green contender for power, Glen Murray, previously sat as Liberal MPP).

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Perhaps legacy of her having represented Rosedale, but KWT is actually a bit of a coalition-building fence-sitter--even if not quite to the left-to-centre morph degree of predecessors like Barbara Hall or Kyle Rae (not to mention, on a parliamentary level, Glen Murray or Bob Rae).  Still, I agree that given the riding's present configuration, the NDP doesn't *need* her to be competitive here.

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No Joe Oliver comeback?

Just because Monte Kwinter could get provincially reelected here at 80 doesn't mean that Joe Oliver would be tempted to make a comeback at the same age (sure, it didn't stop Raymond Cho provincially in Scarborough North, but...)

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If Baber won the federal Tory nomination he would have to resign his seat in the Ontario legislature creating a provincial byelection. I wonder if Del Duca would run there since provincially York Centre has always been such a Liberal stronghold

Does Ontario have a resign-to-run(-federally?) law (for its MPPs)? Or would he only have to trigger a provincial by-election in the event that he's elected federally at the next federal election, whenever that may be?

Yes if an Ontario MPP runs federally they must resign their seat

Back in December of 1984, there were *five* concurrent provincial elections to replace members who resigned to run federally earlier that year--the best demonstration of that rule there could be...

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https://ipolitics.ca/2020/09/01/maxime-bernier-plans-to-run-in-a-toronto-area-byelection/?fbclid=IwAR1jGsq7W6adDu6dXKPsb03RPsfZY7COzkeBISvLc466pezpQS7DO9asTxY

I wouldn't be surprised if he gets the same share *individually* in such a byelection that he got nationally last year.

Or at most, something comparable to the 3.09% Paul Hellyer got in Toronto Centre as leader of the Canadian Action Party in 2000.

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Given the Greens' electoral record, the most they probably could have hoped for in a TC-type riding was "moral victory", anyway--and if we go by 2019's poll-by-poll results (overly plumped within Old Cabbagetown/Don Vale), the problem with TC is that it lacks sufficient wide-ranging "Green demographics"...

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Given the Greens' electoral record, the most they probably could have hoped for in a TC-type riding was "moral victory", anyway--and if we go by 2019's poll-by-poll results (overly plumped within Old Cabbagetown/Don Vale), the problem with TC is that it lacks sufficient wide-ranging "Green demographics"...

I suppose University-Rosedale is the most "Green-friendly" of the TO ridings?

It'd be *more* Green-friendly; but it's also had the most "serious" Green efforts in recent years, thanks to Tim Grant's provincial and federal candidacies.

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So, if Paul wins the Green leadership, this will probably become a Liberal-Green race? It might become 'nationalized' in that scenario. The Liberals would still be favoured obviously, but the Greens would probably break 30%.

I doubt it...this byelection will be super low profile what with the pandemic etc... and the Greens have zero organization in TC...she will probably be lucky to get 10% whether she is leader or not

I can see something low-to-mid-teens, along the lines of Daniel Green's byelection and general result in Outremont in 2019.  And of course, scheduling means that leadership coattails would be putting the cart before the horse (let's remember that to some degree, Elizabeth May was exceptional for already being a "celebrity" upon being Green leader--neither Paul nor any of the other present contenders save Glen Murray can claim anything similar).  And it also depends on what kind of effort (or not) the NDP put into the race--if the party were in anything like the doldrums it was in before the last election, I could see them marginalized on behalf of a Green-centric "united left"; but that's far from the gimme-case now...

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And...looks like Maxime Bernier is choosing York Centre for his reentry into Parliament. 

Fat freaking chance; but interesting on one psephological point:  it'll be the first time since 2004 than York Centre has had *more* than four candidates running.  (For five consecutive elections, they only had Lib-Con-NDP-Green.  There wasn't even a People's candidate there in 2019.)

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No surprise
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/furey-humber-gros-morne-byelection-win-1.5752667

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One hilarious thing I noticed in York Centre today, the PPC signs read "Max Bernier".  An even lamer feat of "Anglo-colloquializing" a leader's name than "Tom Mulcair".

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They just more polls, Liberal is up by 500 votes

Yeah, that was weird; in an instant, went from a dead heat to a healthier Lib margin.  Must have been an advance poll in the W part of the riding, or something.

As for Toronto Centre--I sort of had the inkling the Greens wouldn't just be battling the NDP for a distant second.  But it's definitely interesting how despite Annamie's gains, the NDP share didn't *really* crater relative to last year--that is, it was the "Justin progressive" vote she *really* cannibalized.  And I already anticipated this could wind up the worst Lib result (save 2011) since the 1980s--and that's exactly what happened...

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My thoughts by party are this:

Liberals: While low turnout so don't read a lot in this not a good night.  If they were thinking of triggering a snap election, this should make them pause.  Yes won both, but margins were much closer than what they should be at if they want to win a majority.

Tories: Good but not great night.  Irrelevant in Toronto Centre as expected while fell a bit short in York Centre, but not a bad showing.  Basically have a strong foundation to work with in suburban Ontario, but still work to do since if they want to win a majority, they need to win ridings like this.

NDP: Irrelevant in both ridings.

Green Party: Very good showing in Toronto Centre and while Annemarie Paul fell short, this is not exactly a prime riding for a Green pickup so definitely shows she has potential.

PPC:  Looked like Mad Max would cost Conservatives the seat but didn't quite.  However shows his party is largely irrelevant.

(1) I'm not sure if the margin in Toronto Centre would have been *that* close if it weren't for the Annamie Paul goodwill honeymoon--though I still hold that the seat's more "targetable" than many have claimed.  And the Liberal share there was only barely higher than the Con share in York Centre, which is telling you something.

(2) I think a lot of people were anticipating more of a 2019-style result for the Cons in YC than the 2015-style result which happened--indication there's still life either in the old Jewish Conservative dogwhistle or Doug Ford's "pandemic honeymoon" (with an assist from federal GTA leadership)

(3) The NDP's not *completely* irrelevant--indeed, they held a surprising degree of their share in TC despite the Annamie Paul surge (and did better than in the Bob Rae byelection and the general that followed--even if that was when Rosedale was still part of the riding)

(4) My "watch Annamie Paul" logic vindicated--though were she not leader, she probably would have gotten something closer to her 2019 share.  And even if she took more from the Libs (and even, arguably, the Cons) than from the NDP, who's to say that vote taken would have gone back into the Liberal camp.

(5) I didn't realize he was credited as "Max" Bernier on the ballot as well.  And PPC, much like the Lepenistes in France, seem a bit more "complicated" than a mere Conservative vote-splitter.

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(2) I think a lot of people were anticipating more of a 2019-style result for the Cons in YC than the 2015-style result which happened--indication there's still life either in the old Jewish Conservative dogwhistle or Doug Ford's "pandemic honeymoon" (with an assist from federal GTA leadership)

I suspect a big chunk of that result is Tory voters being more motivated to vote given the circumstances as well.

And also, a candidate that made *some* sense relative to riding demos, unlike 2019.

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(2) I think a lot of people were anticipating more of a 2019-style result for the Cons in YC than the 2015-style result which happened--indication there's still life either in the old Jewish Conservative dogwhistle or Doug Ford's "pandemic honeymoon" (with an assist from federal GTA leadership)

I suspect a big chunk of that result is Tory voters being more motivated to vote given the circumstances as well.

And also, a candidate that made *some* sense relative to riding demos, unlike 2019.

Wait, I thought we ran socons both times?

I'm talking about Julius Tiangson's implicit ties to the Filipino community.