RECOUNT GIVES TRUDEAU’S LIBERALS ONE MORE VICTORY

Federal Liberals say they’ve picked up another seat in Quebec after a judicial recount. They say incumbent Brenda Shanahan will be returning to Parliament after the recount declared her the winner in Châteauguay-lacolle over her Bloc Québécois rival by just 12 votes. That overturns preliminary results from the Sept. 20 election, which had Shanahan losing to the Bloc’s Patrick O’hara by 286 votes. The recount bumps up the total number of seats won by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to 160, although the winner in one of them — Kevin Vuong in Toronto’s Spadina-fort York — will be sitting as an Independent MP after failing to disclose a past sexual assault charge that was ultimately dropped. It boosts the Liberal seat tally in Quebec to 35, the same as the party won in 2019; the Bloc emerges with 32 seats, also unchanged from 2019. The election returned Trudeau’s Liberals with a minority government, 10 seats short of the 170 needed for a majority.