York Centre byelection a surprise nail-biter. Liberals on track to hold Toronto Centre with Green Leader Annamie Paul second

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Fortress Toronto cracked on Monday. But it didn’t break.

The governing Liberals successfully defended two of their historic strongholds in Canada’s biggest city in two federal byelections on Monday, fending off strong showings from their Conservative and Green challengers.

Television host Marci Ien carried the riding of Toronto Centre for the Liberals and is set to become the latest MP for the party in a riding that has reliably elected Liberals since 1993. But the contest was closer than in recent elections because of a strong showing from Annamie Paul, the newly-elected Green Leader who ran in Toronto Centre for the second time and substantially increased her share of the vote.

With all 144 polls reporting, Ien had 42 per cent of the vote, compared with less than 33 per cent for Paul.

As of midnight, Liberal Marci Ien suceeded in a 10-vote lead over Green Party Annamie Paul.

“Congratulations to @MarciIen for her win in #TorCen and to all the candidates, @CanadianGreens are thereto support Marci’s effort to help residents,” said Paul in a tweet.

When asked what her nexts steps were, Ien talked about the importance of working to protect the most vulnerable during the pandemic, she says she’s looking forward to “Getting sworn in, rolling up my sleeves and serving the residents of Toronto Centre.”

The other byelection contest in York Centre was closer and did not yield a clear result until after midnight.

Still, Liberal candidate Ya’ara Saks ended up narrowly besting Conservative Julius Tiangson — who was ahead by just one vote late Monday night — by a margin of about five percentage points.

Both ridings have decades-long histories of electing Liberals and have been held by the party since 2015.

The votes Monday marked the first time voters anywhere in Canada had to cast ballots in a federal election since Canada was swamped by the COVID-19 pandemic early this year. In the months since, Trudeau’s Liberal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on special programs to support people and businesses, barred foreign tourists from Canada, and overseen efforts to buy up much-needed medical gear and coronavirus vaccine candidates.

The byelections also come in the wake of the WE Charity controversy, amid accusations of government corruption from the Opposition over how the Liberals outsourced a $544-million funding agreement to the organization that has paid tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees and expenses to members of the prime minister’s family — including his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau.

The controversy also involved Morneau, who repaid WE more than $40,000 this summer for foreign trips his family took with the charity in 2017.

Morneau resigned as MP for Toronto Centre in August, shortly before Michael Levitt — the incumbent Liberal in York Centre — stepped down to run a human rights organization.

Jacob Robbins-Kanter, a PhD candidate in political studies at Queen’s University, said the ongoing drama of the WE controversy puts the Liberals in a “challenging spot,” even if he expected Monday afternoon the party would win in both Toronto ridings.

“In addition to the unpredictability of the pandemic, (there are) lingering issues they are dealing with around the WE Charity scandal, the uncertain economic outlook, and the fact that they’re in a minority situation,” Robbins-Kanter said.

The byelection campaigns began in September as the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic washed over the city, pushing infections to record highs in Ontario in recent weeks. The situation prompted Paul — who was elected less than four weeks ago as Green leader — to argue it was too dangerous to hold the byelections and call for them to be postponed.

By law, Elections Canada would have needed to declare it “impracticable” to run the elections in order for Trudeau to suspend the votes for a maximum of three months. But throughout the campaigns, the federal elections agency maintained it was able to hold elections during the pandemic by implementing safety measures like capacity limits and physical distancing at polling stations, where workers were supplied with masks, face shields, gloves and sanitizer, and voters marked their ballots with single-use pencils.

Trudeau had also defended his decision to call the byelections during COVID-19’s second wave, stating on Oct. 9, “every Canadian deserves to have someone out there fighting for them, particularly in this pandemic.”

In the latter stage of the campaign, the Liberals and Conservatives called for opposing candidates to drop out of their respective races over past posts on social media. This included Liberal condemnation of the Conservative candidate in York Centre, over a post on Twitter in August in which he commented on the racial identity of U.S. vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

The Conservatives responded by unearthing a tweet by Ien from 2011, where she said a conspiracy theory about 9/11 “really makes you think.”

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Neither candidate stepped down, and Ien stated at the time she regrets “the impression” left by her comment.

For Robbins-Kanter, the other “interesting factor” in the byelections was the People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier — a longtime Quebec Conservative MP — chose to run in York Centre.

He was set to be roundly defeated Monday, garnering about 4 per cent of the vote as of press time.