Trudeau announces byelections in Quebec, Manitoba ridings for September

Voters in two Canadian ridings — one in Quebec and another in Manitoba — will head to the polls in September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sunday in announcing that the campaign period for the pair of byelections has begun.

The byelections will be held Sept. 16.

In Quebec, the Liberals are hoping to hold the LaSalle—Émard—Verdun riding, which became vacant when former justice minister David Lametti resigned from politics.

That riding has been Liberal red since its creation in 2013 and first its election in 2015, which swept the Liberals into power. Lametti has held it in each subsequent election with more than 40 per cent of the vote.

The Liberals have put forward Montreal city councillor Laura Palestini as their candidate, though her nomination raised controversy last week after Trudeau handpicked her to run despite three other contenders having campaigned for months for a nomination contest that never came.

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Soraya Martinez Ferrada, the party’s campaign co-chair, said at the time it was Trudeau’s decision to prevent party members from choosing the candidate and to instead select Palestini, who represents the LaSalle borough on Montreal’s city council.

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The Conservatives have picked Louis Ialenti, who the party describes as a “common-sense small business owner.” The NDP, meanwhile, have chosen another municipal councillor, Craig Sauvé, while the Bloc Quebecois has not yet named their candidate.

The byelection could be high stakes for the Liberals, who lost the Ontario riding of Toronto-St. Paul’s to the Conservatives by a slender margin last month in what was expected to be a sure thing for the governing party.

In Manitoba, the NDP are hoping to keep the riding of Elmwood-Transcona in orange hands after three-term MP Daniel Blaikie stepped down.

The party has held the riding in every election but one since 2004, when the Conservatives’ Lawrence Toet briefly held it during the party’s majority government in 2011. Blaikie returned it to the NDP — and to his family’s hands — in 2015. His father, Bill Blaikie, had held the seat between 2004 to 2008 and from 1988 until 2004, when the riding was Winnipeg-Transcona.

Blaikie resigned as of March 2024 to accept a position in Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew’s office.

In the upcoming byelection, the NDP have nominated Transcona BIZ executive director Leila Dance, the Conservatives have put forward construction electrician and union member Colin Reynolds, and the Liberals have chosen former teacher Ian MacIntyre, who also ran for the Manitoba Liberals in last year’s provincial election.