The Liberal party has lost yet another safe seat in the LaSalle––Émard—Verdun byelection, losing to the Bloc Québécois candidate.
The Bloc Québécois’ Louis-Philippe Sauvé won the Montreal-area riding with 28% of the vote, a monumental increase from their 2021 result in which they garnered 22.1% of total votes.
Liberal party candidate Laura Palestini finished second with 27.2% of the vote, a massive dropoff from the 42.9% that the Liberals received in the 2021 election.
NDP candidate Craig Sauvé placed in a competitive third place, garnering 26.1% of the vote, an improvement from the NDP’s 19.4% in the riding last election. Conservative candidate Louis Ialenti placed in a distant fourth with 11.6% of the vote.
The result reflects a massive plunge in support for the Liberal party in a Quebec riding that has been safely held by the Liberals for nearly a decade. Since its creation in 2015, former Liberal cabinet minister David Lametti won the riding for the Liberals in three straight elections, never dropping below 42% support while his runner-up never eclipsed 30%.
Former prime minister Paul Martin represented parts of this riding. A non-Liberal candidate hasn’t won here since the 2011 election.
MP-elect Louis-Philippe Sauvé is a longtime backer of the Bloc Québécois, serving as a staffer for the party intermittently for seven years
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s party continues to bleed support and lose seats once strongly held by the Liberals.
A June byelection in the riding of Toronto––St. Paul’s saw the Liberals’ candidate Leslie Church lose to Conservative candidate Don Stewart, losing by a margin of nearly 2%. In 2021, longtime Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett safely won re-election with 49.2% of the vote, beating the Conservative candidate by nearly 25%.
Across the country, the Trudeau government has become remarkably unpopular, with national opinion polls pegging the Liberals’ support in the low-to-mid 20s.
The Bloc Québécois have capitalized on the Liberal party’s sagging support, seeking to pick up seats in the French-speaking province that have historically been dominated by the Grits.
Louis-Philippe Sauvé will join the Bloc’s ranks to boost their seat count to 33 ahead of a 2025 election in which they’d like to bolster their seats in the House of Commons.