Liberals

The headline on that analysis read that O’Toole “has work to do” to make himself an attractive prospect in the GTA. Next week’s by-elections aren’t the final verdict on whether he’s doing that work, but they’re not a bad early report card.

The NDP is the only major party without any big firsts in these by-elections, but Leader Jagmeet Singh will be looking to see whether he’s getting any bump or loss of support for working with the Liberals during the pandemic.

So here, in terms of numbers, is where the main parties will be looking for signs in next week’s results.

— Trudeau’s Liberals need to keep or improve the 50 per cent plus strength they had in these two ridings last October. Morneau won with 57 per cent in Toronto Centre, while former MP Michael Levitt, also now resigned, won York Centre with 50.2 per cent.

— The Green party leader needs to vault herself and her party out of the single digits. Paul, who also ran in Toronto Centre last year, netted only seven per cent of the vote in that race, while Greens took a tiny three per cent of the vote in York Centre.

— O’Toole will be eyeing York Centre especially for growth, where Conservatives ran a strong second last year at 36 per cent. In Toronto Centre, he’ll want to do better than the 12 per cent Conservatives got in 2019.

— The NDP will want better than the 22 per cent it got in Toronto Centre last year and the 9.8 per cent in York Centre.

Two Toronto by-elections may pale in the shadow of COVID-19’s second wave, not to mention the looming presidential vote in the United States on Nov. 3. But the results will create major to-do lists for all of Canada’s main political parties, for whenever a full-blown federal election rolls around again in this country.