Former broadcaster wins riding
Conservative MP takes over district once led by O’Toole
Conservative candidate Jamil Jivani won the federal byelection in Durham Monday night, the latest in a new cohort of millennial politicians joining leader Pierre Poilievre’s team in the House of Commons.
As of 10:30 p.m. Monday, Elections Canada reported Jivani with 55 per cent of the vote and 68 per cent of polls reporting, well ahead of the Liberals and New Democrats.
In a speech to an exuberant crowd of supporters Monday evening, Jivani said he set out to send Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government a message and in his victory, he did.
Jivani said Trudeau doesn’t know what to do with people like him — a millennial son of an African immigrant, who was raised by a single mother and is a cancer survivor.
“He thinks that people like me owe his party something, that we have to fall in line behind his party,” he said.
“I obviously disagree. I think there are many conservatives like me. There are many conservatives who acknowledge that in 2024, it is our party that best represents the values of our communities.”
The 36-year-old former broadcaster and conservative advocate replaces former Conservative party leader Erin O’Toole as the member of Parliament for the riding.
O’Toole resigned from Parliament last year after he was removed as leader of the Conservatives by his own MPs.
The subsequent leadership contest saw Poilievre easily assume the title, and Jivani has been a prominent supporter of his ever since. His vote count Monday night far outpaced O’Toole’s own support in the riding during his years as an MP.
Voter turnout in byelections is generally lower than in national campaigns. On Monday, Elections Canada said 21.7 per cent of voters who registered before election day cast a ballot. In the 2021 election, turnout in Durham was around 61 per cent.
“Congratulations to common sense Conservative Jamil Jivani on being elected as the new Member of Parliament for Durham,” Poilievre wrote on his social media account Monday night. “Together we will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, and stop the crime.”
The Conservatives were the oddson favourite to win Monday — the seat is considered a Conservative stronghold.
But, they put on a full-court press, with Poilievre doing a kickoff event with Jivani and sending his MPs down to the riding repeatedly to help campaign and get out the vote.
The Liberals were determined to match those efforts. Their candidate, Robert Rock, was a former regional councillor who briefly flirted with running for the Tories before saying he was turned off by their American-style approach.
Numerous Liberal MPs and cabinet ministers came to the riding — about an hour east of Toronto — to campaign with Rock, including Trudeau.
In the 2021 election, the Liberals received about 29 per cent of the vote. On Monday, the results midway through the evening saw their vote share hovering around 22 per cent.
In third place were the New Democrats, whose candidate was Chris Borgia, the president of the Durham Labour Council, who had been joined on the campaign trail over the weekend by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.
The Green candidate for Monday’s byelection was Kevin MacKenzie.
There was also an Independent candidate, Pranay Gunti. Adam Smith was on the ballot for the Rhinoceros party, Khalid Qureshi for the Centrist party and Grant Abraham for the United party.
Taking her second run at the seat for the People’s Party of Canada was Patricia Conlin, who won 5.5 per cent of the vote in the 2021 general election, and with 65 per cent of polls reporting midway through the night she was on track to win 4.9 per cent.
Though the results don’t change the standings in the House of Commons, it doesn’t mean they won’t be parsed by the various party machines.
Turnout, vote share and vote movement will all be seen as potential harbingers of what might come in the next general election, scheduled for the fall of 2025.
‘‘ I think there are many conservatives like me. There are many conservatives who acknowledge that in 2024, it is our party that best represents the values of our communities.
JAMIL JIVANI NEWLY ELECTED CONSERVATIVE MP