OTTAWA \u2014 Prime Minister Mark Carney secured his government’s majority by winning all three byelections in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec on Monday night, upping his seat count to 173 in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n
The Liberals were expecting to easily win the two byelections in Toronto and Vancouver, but the race in Chicoutimi\u2014Le Fjord \u2014 a riding two hours north of Quebec City \u2014 was shaping up to be a fierce battle between the Liberals and the Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois. The collapse of the trade talks with the United States, combined with Carney’s commitment to protect supply management, ultimately led the Liberals picking up the seat in Quebec.<\/p>\n
Liberal candidate Daniel Gobeil, former head of the Milk Producers of Quebec and a dairy farmer himself, won a resounding victory in Chicoutimi\u2014Le Fjord with over 51 per cent of the vote while Bloc’s Caroline Dub\u00e9, a former political staffer, finished second with 33 per cent according to preliminary results. Conservative candidate R\u00e9gis Gaudreault, a lawyer by profession, finished in third place at 13 per cent.<\/p>\n
In his victory speech, Gobeil said he was happy the people of Chicoutimi\u2014Le Fjord would have a seat at the table in government and he vowed to become a strong voice for supply management.<\/p>\n
A Liberal source told the National Post ahead of the vote that the mood amongst voters had significantly shifted in Chicoutimi\u2014Le Fjord after the trade talks collapsed with the U.S. The source, speaking on a not-for-attribution basis to talk more freely, said people at the doors seemed to rally around Carney’s decision to not concede to the Trump administration’s demands.<\/p>\n
The Saguenay\u2014Lac-Saint-Jean region has been disproportionately affected by the trade war with the U.S. Many workers in the area work in the aluminum and lumber sectors, and there is a large dairy farming industry under supply management. Despite that, voters were ready to support Carney in his decision to walk away from the negotiating table.<\/p>\n
“I have to say: the people of Saguenay\u2014Lac-Saint-Jean are very proud and they don’t let people step on their toes,” the source said.<\/p>\n
The seat of Chicoutimi\u2014Le Fjord was left vacant after Conservative MP Richard Martel, a former junior hockey coach, was appointed to the Senate by Carney earlier this summer.<\/p>\n
Martel’s move to the Senate, while not a floor-crossing per se, might have left a sour taste in the mouths of some of his voters. But Chicoutimi\u2014Le Fjord was not a Conservative stronghold. In fact, voters in the riding have voted Bloc, Liberal and NDP in the past before they first voted for Martel, whom was well-known in the community, in 2018.<\/p>\n
Despite a strong personal brand, Martel barely held onto his seat in 2025. Only three points separated first place from third place<\/a> in the riding, and Martel won his fourth mandate with a razor-thin majority.<\/p>\n Late Monday evening, Bloc Leader Yves-Fran\u00e7ois Blanchet conceded the victory to the Liberals and congratulated his candidate for a hard-fought campaign. He also proclaimed that this byelection has demonstrated that there are two main political parties competing on the federal scene: the Liberals and the Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois.<\/p>\n Blanchet spent nearly two weeks campaigning with his candidate in Chicoutimi\u2014Le Fjord, to the point where his opponents have suggested they’re campaigning against him and not Dub\u00e9. Bloc MPs and Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois candidates also swarmed in the riding in recent weeks to help Dub\u00e9 go out and meet voters, but to no avail.<\/p>\n In comparison, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Carney each visited the riding once ahead of the byelection.<\/p>\n The Bloc had criticized Carney for holding a federal byelection while the Quebec election campaign is underway.<\/p>\n In fact, provincial party signs have swarmed the streets of Chicoutimi in recent days, adding to the federal signs already in place. The confusion was such that Elections Canada had to remind voters<\/a> that Monday’s federal byelection is separate from the provincial election set to happen on Oct. 5.<\/p>\n The trade war may have helped the Liberals snatch a riding from the Conservatives, but they easily held onto two of their safe seats on Monday.<\/p>\n Tanveer Shahnawaz, a longtime political staffer to former Liberal minister Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, had secured 55 per cent of the vote in the Toronto riding of Beaches\u2014East York with most of the ballot boxes counted. Shahnawaz said in a speech it will be “an honour of a lifetime” to serve as MP, while his former boss praised his kindness and his hard work in the riding.<\/p>\n The race in the B.C. riding of North Vancouver\u2014Capilano sought to replace Jonathan Wilkinson, another former minister who is now Canada’s ambassador to the European Union. Carney’s former deputy chief of staff, Braeden Caley, was already well on his way to winning the seat late Monday evening \u2014 early results showing 58 per cent of the votes.<\/p>\n At least five more byelections are expected to be called in the coming months, including three in Quebec, one in Ontario and one in Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n National Post Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com<\/a> and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Prime Minister Mark Carney secured his government’s majority by winning all three byelections in British Columbia,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[60122,735,60028,47251,145,60025,60026,60024,122,111,60121,25608,60123,5430,241,6618,60027],"class_list":["post-190791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-bloc","tag-carney","tag-chicoutimi","tag-chicoutimi-le-fjord","tag-conservative","tag-daniel-gobeil","tag-dube","tag-gobeil","tag-liberals","tag-mark-carney","tag-martel","tag-monday","tag-monday-night","tag-national-post","tag-quebec","tag-quebec-city","tag-saguenay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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