{"id":193297,"date":"2026-09-02T20:31:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T20:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/193297\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T20:31:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T20:31:31","slug":"lorne-gunter-liberals-ride-anti-trump-wave-to-byelection-wins-poll-gains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/193297\/","title":{"rendered":"Lorne Gunter: Liberals ride anti-Trump wave to byelection wins, poll gains"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Liberals, of course, won all three federal byelections on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two of these were unremarkable. Vancouver’s North Vancouver-Capilano and Toronto’s Beaches-East York were considered safe Liberal seats. The Liberals won the Vancouver riding by 26 percentage points in the 2025 general election and the Toronto riding by 44 points.<\/p>\n

The third byelection, in Quebec’s Chicoutimi-Le Fjord riding, was an upset. The Liberal candidate in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord finished only three points behind the winning Conservative in 2025, but that was good enough only for third place behind the winning Conservative and the Bloc Quebecois runner-up.<\/p>\n

This time, the Liberal victory was a no-doubter. Former Dairy Farmers of Qu\u00e9bec president, Daniel Gobeil, captured just over 51 per cent of the vote compared to just 33 per cent for the Bloc. Indeed, the BQ increased its share of the vote by nearly two percentage points.<\/p>\n

The scale of the Liberal triumph was the result of the utter collapse of the Conservative vote. The Libs went up 20 per cent while the Conservatives shed 22 per cent.<\/p>\n

Richard Martel had been the Conservative MP from the riding since 2018 \u2014 through four federal elections. But Prime Minister Mark Carney appointed Martel to the Senate earlier this year, which made Monday’s byelection necessary.<\/p>\n

Whereas Martel had earned 34 Per cent of the vote in 2025, the Conservative candidate on Monday, R\u00e9gis Gaudreault, a lawyer and college instructor, managed less than 13 per cent. Most of the lost Conservative vote migrated to the Liberal Gobeil.<\/p>\n

The Liberal win in Quebec is bad news for Canadian grocery shoppers and perhaps even for trade negotiators.<\/p>\n

Gobeil made retaining milk quotas and protecting supply management in dairy products a centrepiece of his campaign. He frequently thanked Carney for walking away from a deal with the Americans that would have weakened protectionism in agriculture.<\/p>\n

Now that the Liberals have seen what a vote-getter supply management is, expect them never to budge on American demands to loosen Canadian quotas.<\/p>\n

While Chicoutimi-Le Fjord witnessed the most substantial decline in voter support for the Conservatives, Pierre Poilievre’s party experienced drops in three ridings on Monday.<\/p>\n

In Beaches-East York, Conservative support dropped eight points, while in North Vancouver-Capilano it declined by nearly five points.<\/p>\n

The continued decline in Conservative popularity is perhaps the biggest takeaway from the byelections.<\/p>\n

According to the poll analysts at 338Canada.com, if current voting and polling trends were to hold into a general election, the Liberals would win a majority of 222 seats (up from 173). Meanwhile the Conservatives would hold on to just 84 (down from 138). The Bloc would stay the same at 21 seats, while the NDP might grow from five seats to 14.<\/p>\n

It’s not entirely clear what the Conservatives could be doing to strengthen their support. Central Canadian voters and media are in love with Carney for as long as he picks fights with U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Trump, obviously, wasn’t on the ballot in any of the three byelections, but his ongoing hatred for Canada and his desire to send our economy into the tank was very much a key to the Liberals’ strength of victory.<\/p>\n

Voters over 60 years of age, particularly in Ontario, are blind to any other leader. In Ontario, if an election were called today, it would be a return to the Liberal dominance under Jean Chretien. The province would send Liberals to Ottawa in 101 of its 121 seats.<\/p>\n

It’s tempting to say Poilievre should make way for another Conservative leader, but who? Doug Ford? Don’t make me laugh.<\/p>\n

Poilievre is disliked by a large swath of the electorate, but if voters and reporters have blinders on for every leader but Carney, and they view his every move with unflinching admiration, no other Conservative could do radically better.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

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