Canadian by-elections 2021-2022

[Hatman 🍁]

I believe all provincial legislatures and the House of Commons have no vacancies at the moment, but here is our annual thread on by-elections in Canada.

There is at least one "major" by-election coming up, voters in Scarborough—Agincourt go to the polls on January 15 to elect a new city councillor. There are 27 (!) candidates to running to replace Jim Karygiannis (also the riding's MP from 1988 to 2014) who was kicked off council for overspending in the last election.

I'm told the main candidates are Christina Liu (backed by most of the Tory establishment, but notably not the riding's MPP) Tony Luk (backed by some local Liberals), Nick Mantas (endorsed by the riding's MPP), Roland Lin (ran in 2018) and Manna Wong (progressive, is the ward's public school trustee)

[Hatman 🍁]

Results from yesterday's by-election in Ward 22 Scarborough-Agincourt (Toronto City Council):

*Nick Mantas (centre/centre-right) 3,261 (27.0%) - former chief of staff for Karygiannis
*Manna Wong (progressive) 3,038 (25.1%) - the ward's public school trustee
*Christina Liu (conservative) 1,760 (14.6%) - entrepreneur, defacto Tory candidate
*Rocco Achampong (populist) 968 (8.0%) - lawyer, ran for mayor in 2010
*Tony Luk (Liberal) 848 (7.0%) - entrepreneur
*Others 2,213 (18.3%)

Not a bad result for a progressive for a place like Agincourt. So very close

[Hatman 🍁]

Huh, I guess there's been a dearth of provincial by-elections this year. Yesterday, there was one in Cornwall-Meadowbank, PEI to replace Heath MacDonald (Lib) who was elected to federal Parliament. The seat was considered a safe Liberal seat, as the Tories haven't won it in 36 years; it was in fact the only riding the Liberals won in the 2000 Tory landslide.

In typical PEI fashion though, you could throw all expectations out the window. Of course, the popular Tories won!

Results:
Mark McLane (PC): 40.0% (+22.5)
Jane MacIsaac (Lib): 33.2% (-14.7)
Todd MacLean (Grn): 23.4% (-9.8)
Larry Hale (NDP): 3.4% (+2.0)

PC GAIN from Liberal (Swing: 18.6%)

[Hatman 🍁]

As expected, PSPP will not run to replace Catherine Fournier in Marie-Victorin because he'd have lost, probably badly. Legault said he'll give Longueuil voters a break and won't call it till the new year. Martine Ouellet will be running there for her new greenish splinter party, PLQ isn't contesting it. CAQ and QS will be contesting.

Will be interesting to see where the PLQ vote goes. Probably mostly to the CAQ. Should be an easy CAQ pick up.

Just like in the PEI by-election, a popular governing party will pick up a seat that an opposing party (in this case, the PQ) has held for 36 years.

[Hatman 🍁]

As expected, PSPP will not run to replace Catherine Fournier in Marie-Victorin because he'd have lost, probably badly. Legault said he'll give Longueuil voters a break and won't call it till the new year. Martine Ouellet will be running there for her new greenish splinter party, PLQ isn't contesting it. CAQ and QS will be contesting.

Why aren't the PLQ not contesting? Seems odd for a major party to not even run a paper candidate.

Originally they didn't want to run against the leader of a different party (per the tradition of not running in by-elections where the leader is trying to gain entry into the assembly. However, if PSPP isn't actually running, I'm not sure why the Liberals wouldn't run someone after all.

[Hatman 🍁]

Riding polls are especially meaningless mid-term/pre-campaign.

[Hatman 🍁]

I think people should note that while Federarly the first nation voters who do vote give minimal support to the conservative party, that bias does not extend down to provincial politics. Athabasca isn't the only monolithically first nation riding the conservative party was able to win. The Torgatta Mountains* another almost entirely indigenous riding elected a PC representative with 89% of the vote last year due to backlash against several project cancellations by the incumbent Liberal government. I think the fact that African Americans are so universally hostile to the republican party distorts analysis of other minority group voting patterns.

*(though the fact she has left the party and now sits as an independent, and the fact that she got exactly 420 votes is telling)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lela_Evans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torngat_Mountains_(electoral_district)

Kind of funny that you brought her up as an example, as she just crossed the floor to the NDP yesterday.

[Hatman 🍁]

I sorta agree with Josée Legault that M-V won't be that important for the PQ. Either they're comatose like Joe Clark's PCs or die completely like the UN, and I don't think another leader would do much better than PSPP.

Its interesting to look at formerly powerful parties in Canada that have died. The classic example is the Union Nationale which went from being the government of Quebec in 1970 to losing all seats in 1973 and after a dead cat bounce in 1976 - basically ceased to exist.

Other major parties that have died would include:

Alberta Social Credit (Government 1936 to 1971, sputtered with a handful of seats in the 70s and then vanished)
BC Social Credit (Government 1952-72 and again 1975-1991 - then got annhilated and subsumed into the current BC Liberal Party)
The provincial Liberal parties in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were all going concerns as recently as the 1990s and 00s - and are all now basically dead.

The Manitoba Liberals aren't quite dead, they still have seats at least.

[Hatman 🍁]

I agree; I thought the Liberals would win, "Lib Dem style" so it's definitely a missed opportunity IMO.

[Hatman 🍁]

How many QS voters do you think have landlines? I don't think it will be *that* bad; I'm thinking they'll likely get around 10%. Though it is a by-election, and they have a tendency  to turn into two-way races.

[Hatman 🍁]

Mississauga-Lakeshore is also one of the most inelastic ridings in the GTA (probably due to its wealth/Whiteness), so while it seems vulnerable on paper, it might not be. It was both the Liberals' best seat in Mississauga in the 2018 provincial election and their worst seat in the 2021 federal election.

[Hatman 🍁]

Final results:

Eric Redhead, NDP: 71.9% (+17.3)
Charlotte Larocque, PC: 28.1% (-7.6)
NDP HOLD (2 party avg swing: +12.4)
Turnout: 19.7% (-17.6)

[Hatman 🍁]

Mississauga-Lakeshore is also one of the most inelastic ridings in the GTA (probably due to its wealth/Whiteness), so while it seems vulnerable on paper, it might not be. It was both the Liberals' best seat in Mississauga in the 2018 provincial election and their worst seat in the 2021 federal election.

True, though by-elections complicate things for the governing party. The Liberals aren't doing so hot right now, and it takes a lot to motivate people to vote in by-elections, especially for a governing party. A byelection in a relatively inelastic riding like this one is a game of base turnout, and that doesn't work in favour of the Liberals in the current climate.

What makes this more interesting is that, when the byelection is held, the Tories will most likely have a new leader. Trudeau could call it before, but calling this byelection in the summer would be shooting himself in the foot. In all likelihood this byelection will be in the fall, which will give the next CPC leader an opportunity to campaign along with the candidate and try out campaign material. See what sticks, what doesn't, etc. I say the "next CPC leader" with the full expectation that it will be Poilievre - and while byelections aren't always a great bellwether of what will happen in a general, it will be an opportunity for Poilievre to try out his pitch in what is very much a "Laurentian establishment"-type riding.

For the record, it was the Liberals' third best seat in the provincial election. True to form, the results were barely any different from 2018. There was only a half a point average swing from the Liberals to the Tories, even with Sousa off the ballot.

For those keeping tack, here are the results of the NB by-elections:

Miramichi Bay-Neguac:
PC: 45.0% (+11.3)
Lib: 34.5% (-9.1)
Grn: 15.2% (+5.1)
PANB: 3.4% (-7.6)
Ind: 1.9%
PC GAIN from Lib (Avg Swing: 10.2%)
Turnout: 42.2% (-25.4)

Southwest Miramichi-Bay du Vin:
PC: 52.3% (+4.3)
Lib: 35.7% (+14.0)
PANB: 7.5% (-20.5)
Grn: 4.6%
PC HOLD (Avg swing: -4.9%)
Turnout: 43.8% (-28.1)

The People's Alliance are essentially dead now, the NDP didn't run any candidates due to internal disarray. The Greens did fairly well in Neguac, preventing the Liberals from holding the seat. Pretty bad result for the Liberals to lose a seat, even though they did will in Bay du Vin. But, with Higgs being so unpopular, it's a disastrous result.

[Hatman 🍁]

Swings:

Lib: +4.5
NDP: -13.1
Grn: -6.2

Liberal HOLD. Avg. swing: +8.8%

[Hatman 🍁]

Results (prelim, excluding mail-ins):

NDP: 56.8% (+5.5)
SP: 37.0% (-9.1)
Lib: 2.6%
Buf: 2.4%
Grn: 1.2% (-1.4)

Turnout: 37.5% (-18.8)

NDP HOLD (2 party avg swing: +7.3%)
 

[Hatman 🍁]

There are some municipal by-elections in Ontario.

https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/elections/by-election/

New elections will be held on Monday, January 23, 2023 for French school board trustees where the nominated candidates were ineligible.

https://www.cambridge.ca/Modules/News/index.aspx?page=1&newsId=fdad4279-400c-407a-8f88-beb6958b2363

The ballots for separate school supporters in Cambridge did not include the names of two candidates.  The election will 'resume' in November 2022.

The area represented by the trustees also includes the Township of North Dumfries.  "The results from the election for English-Separate, School Board for the Township of North Dumfries will be sealed, forwarded and retained by the City Clerk for the City of Cambridge. Following the resumption of the election in Cambridge the results for the English-Separate School Board will be compiled for Cambridge and North Dumfries to be shared publicly."

I'm sure turnout will be sky high for these events. What are the odds that the number of voters from North Dumfries is greater than that of Cambridge? What a sham. Meanwhile, no by-election in Scarborough North...

[Hatman 🍁]

Progressives have won Scarborough North before. Remember Rathika Sitsabaiesan?

[Hatman 🍁]

Love how Alex was copying the NY Times colour schematics

Anyway, since BF posted the results, here are the swings:

UCP: -6.1%
NDP: +8.8%
AP: +9.6%
TIP: +0.8%

UCP HOLD (2 party avg swing: -7.5%)

The NDP's going to need a bigger swing than that to win province wide. Though, winning the Medicine Hat polls outright is a good sign.

ETA: According to ridingbuilder, the NDP won 23% here in 2015, so this is actually a very good result. The riding is just fairly inelastic.

[Hatman 🍁]

Wonder if we'll get a candidate who wins 0 votes? Also, this could result in Turmel's lowest PV share, maybe ever? (This coming off his Brantford mayoral run, where he had his best result in 25 years and 60 elections)

[Hatman 🍁]

I would've voted for Turmel in that election 25 years ago, had I been old enough to vote. It was the Ottawa-Carleton chair election, and there were only 3 candidates (Bob Chiarelli and incumbent chair Peter Clark being the other two, both centrist/centre-right candidates)

[Hatman 🍁]

Kirkfield Park went NDP in 2007 and 2011, so it's not like Fort Whyte where the only other option for disgruntled Tories is to vote Liberal.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Greens actually increased their vote share. I guess it helped that Elizabeth May did some campaigning.

[Hatman 🍁]

How much "base" is there in Mississauga Lakeshore of all places?

[Hatman 🍁]

How much "base" is there in Mississauga Lakeshore of all places?

I believe the demographics here make this the most "Conservative" of all the Mississauga ridings - so this is precisely where they need to do well.  Is there a road to victory for Poilievre without any Peel wins (other than Dufferin-Caledon)?  York (and Durham) seem like they may be easier targets for Poilievre.

Poilievre does not appeal at all to the old money Tories in Lakeshore at all. He doesn't have a base in the riding. They are mostly voting Liberal now, or stayed home in this by-election.

[Hatman 🍁]

Anyway, close provincial by-election shaping up in Kirkfield Park, Manitoba. This is a suburban Winnipeg seat that usually votes PCs, but the NDP won a couple times before their recent crash.

With 34/48 polls reporting:

NDP: 1,062
PC: 1,030
Lib: 911