Federal Byelections, Oh My!
Oxford, Winnipeg South Centre, Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Westmount, and Portage-Lisgar.
Overview
On Monday, June 19th we’ll see four federal ridings, across three provinces, heading to the polls.
In Manitoba we have Winnipeg South Centre and Portage-Lisgar. In Ontario there’s Oxford and in Quebec we have Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Westmount.
Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Westmount
Notre-Dame-De-Grace-Westmount was formally held by Liberal MP, Marc Garneau. The former astronaut and cabinet minister bowed out of politics after having represented the riding since its creation in 2015 (And formally Westmount-Ville-Marie since 2008).
The area encompasses Westmount and Montreal West, as well as Notre-Dame-de-Grace, including some surrounding areas. Federally, this riding is a strong Liberal riding with the Liberals securing 53.8% in the 2021 election here.
It’s widely expected that Liberal candidate, Anna Gainey, will keep the riding for the Liberals. However, it’ll be interesting to see how Green co-leader, Jonathan Pedneault, preforms in this riding (The Greens got 4% of the vote here in 2021).
Oxford
Shifting to the west, we land in Ontario where the riding of Oxford is up for grabs!
Oxford is made up of Oxford county as well as a small portion of Brant. The riding was left vacant by former Conservative MP, Dave MacKenzie, after MacKenzie represented the district since 2004.
This riding has the potential to be the most interesting one of the night. MacKenzie originally threw his support behind Deb Tait, his own daughter, during the Conservative nomination race. However, Tait lost out to Arpan Khanna, a candidate that originally ran in Brampton North for the Conservatives in 2019, which led to a questioning of Khanna as being a legitimate candidate for the riding or not.
As a result, MacKenzie threw his endorsement behind David Hilderley, the Liberal candidate in the race.
The riding has a long history of being Conservative-held with the riding only having gone Liberal in recent memory in the 1990’s when there was significant vote splitting between the Progressive Conservatives, Reform, and later Alliance parties.
There’s been discourse about whether the Liberals are the favourites to win here. The only hard evidence we have of this, data-wise at least, is a Mainstreet riding poll that suggests the Liberals are tied. If that’s correct, then the upcoming byelection could result in a flipping of this seat (But if it does, don’t expect the Liberals to hold the seat in a general election).
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Winnipeg South Centre
Winnipeg South Centre was previously held by the late Liberal MP, Jim Carr. Carr passed in December 2022 after fighting a multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. Carr represented the riding since 2015.
Now the race is on to fill the seat and much like Notre-Dame-De-Grace-Westmount, it’s widely expected that this seat will stay firmly Liberal, especially given Ben Carr, the son of Jim Carr, is running for the Liberals. The Liberals won this riding in 2021 with 45.6% of the vote and Mainstreet’s riding poll suggests the Liberals will easily hold this riding.
The riding is also mildly notable because it’s the latest punching bag for the Longest Ballot Committee, a group bent on signing up as many independent candidates in a riding in protest of Trudeau’s broken promise on electoral reform. There are upwards of 40 independent candidates on the ballot as a result.
Portage-Lisgar
Portage-Lisgar is a very conservative riding in southern Manitoba. Since its inception, the riding has been either Reform, Alliance or Conservative since 1997, with notable MP’s such as Brian Pallister and Candice Bergen, the latter of which resigned her seat to bow out of politics.
The riding encompasses most of central Manitoba with areas such as Portage la Prairie, Winkler and Morden, among others. The riding also has a high concentration of Mennonite populations and native German speakers who, as a grouping, tend to vote to the right quite heavily.
In 2021 the riding was notable because of the PPC managing to win 21.6% of the vote while the Conservatives pulled 52.5% (A collective 74.1% for right-wing parties). Maxime Bernier, leader of the PPC, has decided to capitalize on his party’s former success and is running as the PPC candidate in the riding against CPC candidate, Branden Leslie.
Regardless, it’s expected to be a safe Conservative hold as PPC support has dropped since Covid-era policies (A foundation for previous PPC support) have long since been eliminated from broader society. However, Mainstreet’s riding poll still believes the PPC will pick up around 27% of the vote while the Conservatives stay well ahead.
The riding has been wild to watch from an outside perspective with the Conservatives accusing Bernier and the PPC of being WEF (World Economic Forum) puppets and the PPC accusing the Conservatives of being ‘Fake conservatives’.
What happened to Calgary Heritage? We have been without an MP since our useless numnut CPC MP stepped down last Dec 31!