Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 27.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
A few weeks ago, a friend who lives in the riding of Toronto-St. Paul’s heard the doorbell ring. It was Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hadn’t even called the by-election for the affluent midtown riding, and yet Mr. Poilievre was already knocking on doors in a seat that has been Liberal for decades.
No one is realistically predicting that public disaffection with the Liberals will result in an upset in Toronto-St. Paul’s when the by-election is held on June 24.
But the Conservatives appear to be sending a message: The Liberals should not assume there is a safe seat in the land.
For 30 years after its formation in 1933, St. Paul’s (as it was called before 2015) went Conservative in every election but one. In those far-off days, Toronto the Good was Protestant, sanctimonious and conservative. Meanwhile, the Liberals won one general election after another based on their popularity in most of the rest of the country.
Things flipped in the fifties and sixties. The West abandoned the Liberals, becoming either Conservative or New Democrat, as the party was called starting in 1961. As Toronto became more diverse, it increasingly voted Liberal.
For a while, St. Paul’s – whose boundaries have often changed over the years – was a bit of a bellwether, swinging Liberal in almost every election won by Pierre Trudeau, and then Progressive Conservative under Brian Mulroney.
Such things were possible in the days when Liberals and Progressive Conservatives held similar positions on many issues. But that consensus fell apart in the 1990s, with the rise on the right of the Reform Party and then Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. St. Paul’s went red in 1993 and has stayed as such ever since.
Carolyn Bennett held the riding through nine elections, usually beating the Conservatives by large margins, before stepping down to become ambassador to Denmark.
So a Tory upset is unlikely. But the Conservatives are hoping that a strong result in the by-election will reveal their growing strength in the Greater Toronto Area.
As everyone knows, the Conservatives are streets ahead of the Liberals in popular support. But for that support to translate into a majority Conservative government after the next election, the Tories need to take many of the seats in the suburban GTA.
In his majority government of 2011, Mr. Harper’s Conservatives not only dominated in the 905 – the ridings surrounding Toronto named after their area code – but penetrated into Toronto’s 416 as well, getting as close to the downtown as Eglinton-Lawrence, which borders Toronto-St. Paul’s. The better the Conservatives do in this by-election, the stronger the signal they will be sending that a large majority government under their party is on the horizon.
As well, about 11 per cent of the residents of Toronto-St. Paul’s are Jewish, according to Elections Canada, one of the highest concentrations in the country. The Liberals’ attempt to straddle the fence on Israel’s war in Gaza has alienated both Muslims, a plurality of whom now currently favour the NDP, and Jews, a plurality of whom favour the Conservatives, according to a recent Angus Reid poll.
Finally, by-elections offer voters an opportunity to warn the governing party of their displeasure. Add all these factors together, and it becomes reasonable to believe that the Conservatives will do well.
How well? In the last federal election, Dr. Bennett won the riding with 49 per cent of the vote, with the Tories down at 26 per cent. But in the 2011 election that reduced the Liberals to third-party status, she took only 41 per cent, with the Conservatives winning 32 per cent.
A result similar to 2011 in the coming by-election would prove the Conservatives are on a roll in the GTA. It might also signal to Mr. Trudeau that he should step aside, rather than subject his party to an electoral smash-up.
The NDP typically finishes a distant third in Toronto-St. Paul’s. But there is another by-election expected soon: Elmwood-Transcona, in Winnipeg. The late Bill Blaikie held that riding for decades, and his son, Daniel, won it in the last three elections, before stepping down in March.
The riding is no NDP sinecure: the Conservatives took it in 2011 and lost by the narrowest of margins in 2015.
We’ll be watching that riding closely as well when the by-election comes.
John Ibbitson