Byelections measure impact of Senate scandal, battle for opposition supremacy
OTTAWA (CP) — Are Stephen Harper’s Conservatives on the ropes over the Senate expenses scandal?
And, if they are, to which opposition party — Tom Mulcair’s NDP or Justin Trudeau’s Liberals — will Canadians turn to replace them?
Four byelections on Monday may provide some answers to those questions.
Byelections are typically considered unique, locally-driven events that have little bearing on what might happen in a general election — as the losers in Monday’s contests will doubtless point out.
But these four — in Toronto Centre, Montreal’s Bourassa riding and Manitoba’s BrandonSouris and Provencher — seem to be the exception to the rule, as the unprecedented involvement of the three main party leaders attests.
They will provide the first concrete measure of the Senate scandal’s impact, the depth of Trudeau’s popular appeal and the durability of the NDP’s 2011 electoral breakthrough.
“These four byelections are the first act ahead of (the general election in) 2015,” Chrystia Freeland, the Liberal contender in Toronto Centre, said in an interview.
“Part of what’s being decided is which party will be the alternative to the Conservatives and that’s why we’re fighting so hard.”
Of the four, only the Provencher contest seems a foregone conclusion. Former cabinet minister Vic Toews won the riding with over 70 per cent of the vote in 2011 and it is expected to remain comfortably in the governing party’s fold this time.
But in Brandon-Souris, another erstwhile Tory fiefdom, the Conservatives are fending off a sur- prisingly stiff challenge from the Liberals, who placed a distant, almost non-existent, fourth in 2011.
The riding has been represented by a Conservative for all but four of the last 60 years. In 2011, Merv Tweed won for the Tories with 63.7 per cent of the vote, compared to just 5.4 per cent for the Liberal candidate.
That it’s even a contest this time is worrying to Conservatives; defeat would shake a party already reeling from the Senate scandal and potentially spark a challenge to Harper’s grip on the party reins.