His name was not on the ballot, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is being cited as the big loser after his Liberal Party suffered a defeat in a special election to fill a seat in Canada’s Parliament.
Liberals have held the seat in Toronto-St. Paul’s since 1993, but on Monday, Liberal candidate Leslie Church, a former chief of staff to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, was defeated by Conservative candidate Don Stewart, according to Politico.
Former Conservative campaign manager Fred DeLorey called the election “Trudeau’s last stand.”
"What a disaster for the Liberals," said Philippe Fournier, editor in chief of the election projection website 338Canada.
Going to bed without a call for Toronto--St Paul's.
What a disaster for the Liberals.
— Philippe J. Fournier (@338Canada) June 25, 2024
"Liberals should be concerned that public opinion polls showing frustration with their party is not a blip or an aberration," Alex Marland, a politics professor at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, told the BBC.
He said Conservatives, who have previously failed to win in "Canada's major urban cores," had "penetrated fortress Toronto."
Canada is expected to hold national elections in the fall of 2025.
“Justin’s position is seriously weakened inside the party,” Canadian historian Robert Bothwell told The Associated Press.
Bothwell said the loss is likely to escalate internal grumbling over the leadership of Trudeau, who has been prime minister since 2015.
One commentator on X said the prime minister "needs to resign. He has no excuse anymore but his own pride.”
Yeah, it’s over. The CPC have won.
Trudeau needs to resign. He has no excuse anymore but his own pride. pic.twitter.com/qCIFZCJxfV
— 🏳️🌈 LLC From BC 🏳️🌈 (@LLCBCer) June 25, 2024
“The Liberals poured, and were seen to pour, everything they had into this one,” Bothwell said. “Bringing ministers down and mobilizing office staffs from Ottawa signaled desperation.”
Church said voters “sent us a clear message, that they want us to re-earn their trust.”
Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, said the issue is less a love affair with Conservatives than the end of one with Liberals.
“The pressure on Trudeau to announce that he will be stepping down is now insurmountable,” Wiseman said.
With 26,000 signatures calling for Trudeau to resign already, The Counter Signal has crashed and gone down. Here is a direct link to the petition while we work to repair our servers: https://t.co/cqggFpdT6s
— Keean Bexte (@TheRealKeean) June 25, 2024
“Toronto-St. Paul’s was one of only 40 seats the Liberals won when they experienced their worst performance ever, in 2011,” he said, adding that if Liberals lost a supposedly safe seat, “how can they hope to win a general election?”
Trudeau has taken a philosophical approach to the discontent among Canadians, according to Politico.
“I was talking about this with other leaders at the [Group of Seven summit] and in Switzerland at the peace conference for Ukraine,” the prime minister said. “Everywhere, people are struggling with high inflation, cost of living issues, interest rates, housing challenges, child care challenges -- all these things.”
“We are doing better than many countries. [That] doesn’t make a difference to someone who can’t pay for their groceries, but people everywhere are facing a certain amount of frustration,” he said.
