Liberals steal seat in B.C. byelection
Grits take three of four federal by lections, winning in Nfld., Toronto and Surrey-White Rock; the CPC hold its seat in Lloydminster
The Liberals retained two safe seats and then stole one from their rivals, while the Conservatives hung onto a safe seat of their own in three of four federal byelections held Monday. In the B.C. riding of South Surrey-White Rock, Liberal candidate Gordie Hogg will replace Dianne Watts, who stepped down to run for the leadership of the BC Liberal Party.
Hogg narrowly defeated Conservative Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a former Harper-era cabinet minister who represented a neighbouring riding for one term before being defeated in 2015, in a vote with unofficial numbers by press time.
Hogg, a former 20-year MLA, had previously served in various provincial cabinet roles including minister of children and family development, minister of state for mining, minister of state for ActNow BC and chair of the government caucus.
It was the second byelection loss in as many months for newly minted Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer. And it is the first time in 70 years that a Liberal has represented any portion of the riding, the boundaries of which have changed a number of times.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, meanwhile, the Liberals easily retained Bonavista-Burin-Trinity, the safest Liberal seat in the country.
With all polls reporting, Liberal Churence Rogers captured 69.2 per cent of the vote — 46 percentage points ahead of his nearest competitor, Conservative Mike Windsor. Windsor, who ran in 2015, nevertheless managed to double his share of the vote to 22.9 per cent, while the NDP candidate finished a distant third with less than five per cent.
As impressive as Roger’s margin of victory was, he did not meet the standard set by his popular Liberal predecessor, Judy Foote, who retired from cabinet and federal politics due to family health concerns. She won the strongest majority in the country during the 2015 election, taking a whopping 81.8 per cent of the vote.
With 185 of 197 polls reporting, fellow Liberal Jean Yip was leading with 49.4 per cent of the vote in Toronto’s Scarborough-Agincourt, a riding left vacant by the untimely death of her husband, Arnold Chan, in September. Conservative Dasong Zou had 40.5 per cent while the NDP contender took just five per cent.
Yip acknowledged her victory was “somewhat bittersweet.”
“Every step of the campaign, I thought of (Chan) and I knew he would’ve enjoyed it and sometimes I would turn around and I would want to ask him something and he’s not there,” she said in an interview.
“I think he would be so happy though,” she added.
With all polls reporting in the safe Tory riding of Battlefords-Lloydminster in Saskatchewan, Conservative Rosemarie Falk captured 69.6 per cent of the vote — more than 55 points ahead of any of her competitors and an eightpoint improvement over veteran Conservative MP Gerry Ritz, who had held the riding for 20 years before retiring last summer.
The NDP ran a distant second in the riding Monday, as it did in 2015, scoring 13.2 per cent, just ahead of the Liberal, who took 10.4 per cent.
The B.C. contest was the only one of the four byelection contests Monday where anyone though the seat could change hands.
South Surrey-White Rock was left vacant after Watts resigned to run for the leadership of the B.C. Liberals. Watts, a high-profile former mayor of Surrey, narrowly won the seat in 2015 with 44 per cent of the vote, less than 1,500 votes ahead of the Liberal contender.
Monday’s byelections mark the second electoral test for Scheer and newly minted NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.
Neither fared particularly well in their first test.
In October, the Liberals scored a stunning upset in a byelection in Quebec’s nationalist heartland, stealing the riding of Lac-Saint-Jean away from the Tories. The NDP, which had come a close second in the riding in 2015, wound up a distant fourth.
At the same time, Scheer found some consolation in another byelection in an Edmonton Tory stronghold, easily hanging onto Sturgeon River-Parkland with an increased share of the vote, while both the Liberals and NDP saw their vote share decline slightly.
In all six byelections since Singh took the helm of the NDP in early October, the party has seen its share of the vote decline.
Monday’s result in Scarborough-Agincourt should be most worrying for New Democrats.
The riding has a predominantly immigrant population, including a sizeable South Asian population. Moreover, Singh grew up in Scarborough.
Nevertheless, the party saw its share of the vote in the riding drop to about five per cent, down three points from it’s already dismal showing in 2015.