Four byelections to take place June 19: A primer
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called four byelections for vacant seats left by three retirements and one by the death of former cabinet minister Jim Carr.
Byelections will take place on June 19 in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount, Que., (formerly held by Liberal minister Marc Garneau); Oxford, Ont., (formerly held by Conservative MP Dave MacKenzie); Portage-Lisgar, Man., (formerly held by Conservative interim leader Candice Bergen); and Winnipeg South Centre, Man. (formerly held by Carr).
The riding of Calgary Heritage, Alta., (formerly held by Conservative MP Bob Benzen) is also vacant but a byelection has not been called yet.
Here, we preview the ridings and candidates.
Winnipeg South Centre, Man.
The riding
Winnipeg South Centre has been a Liberal stronghold since 1988 when former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy won it after boundaries were redrawn from two adjacent ridings. When he retired in 2000, Anita Neville held it for the Liberals until 2011. The Conservatives won it for one term from 2011-2015 when Joyce Bateman defeated Neville by 696 votes. Jim Carr recaptured the riding for the Liberals in 2015 and became the Minister of Natural Resources. He was re-elected in the riding in the 2019 and 2021 elections. Carr died of cancer in December 2022.
The candidates
Portage-Lisgar, Man.
The riding
Portage-Lisgar, Man., was created in 1997 after boundary readjustments. Since then, it has been a conservative stronghold starting with Jake Hoeppner who won the riding as a then-Reform MP. Brian Pallister, former Manitoba premier, held the riding from 2000 until 2008 as a Canadian Alliance then Conservative MP when he retired from federal politics.
Candice Bergen, former interim Conservative Party leader, represented Portage-Lisgar for 15 years and resigned from office on Feb. 1, 2023.
All previous MPs handily won the riding with at least 50 per cent of the vote except for in 1997 when Hoeppner, then running as a Reform candidate and Pallister, running as Progressive Conservative candidate, split the vote and received 40.25 and 35.94 per cent respectively.
In the last election campaign, the People's Party of Canada candidate, Solomon Wiebe, received 21.6 per cent of the vote — the highest vote percentage received by a PPC candidate across the country. This is a significant result, considering Bergen received 76 per cent of the vote in 2011 and 70.8 per cent of the vote in 2019. In 2021, she received 52.5 per cent, losing votes to the PPC.
That's likely why PPC Leader Maxime Bernier is running in Manitoba when his hometown is Beauce, Que. Bernier was a previous Conservative cabinet minister under Stephen Harper and represented the Quebec riding for 13 years. He previously ran as the Conservative Party leader and formed the PPC after he lost. He ran once as an Independent (receiving 28.4 per cent of the vote) and once as PPC leader in his home riding (receiving 18.2 per cent of the vote).
Nationally, the PPC received 4.9 per cent of the vote. In Manitoba, the party received 7.6 per cent support, the largest share of any province.
Bernier says the byelection will be between him and Conservative candidate Branden Leslie. Bernier's campaign has messaging similar to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre about freedom rights and being against the "woke cult."
In 2021, Bernier was arrested in Manitoba because he broke public health orders during COVID.
Leslie said of his opponent: "Maxime Bernier is an opportunist from Quebec who will say or do anything he thinks people want to hear."
The Liberals, meanwhile, received 11 per cent support in 2021 and the NDP received 13.4 per cent. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in the riding helping Liberal candidate Kerry Smith this week.
The NDP have not yet nominated a candidate to run in the byelection.
The candidates
Oxford, Ont.
The riding
The riding of Oxford is a rural southwestern Ontario riding that has flipped back and forth between the Conservatives and the Liberals but has been predominantly Conservative. Since it was created in 1935, the Liberals have held it for 25 years and the Conservatives the rest of the time, with a 40-year stretch between 1953 and 1993. The Liberals won the seat in 1993 and held it until Dave MacKenzie won it back for the Conservatives in 2004. The riding became vacant when MacKenzie resigned because of mobility problems on Jan. 28.
There was some controversy when MacKenzie publicly endorsed Liberal candidate David Hilderley because of concerns about the Conservative nomination process. One candidate was disqualified a week before the nomination meeting and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and former leader Andrew Scheer endorsed eventual winner Arpan Khanna, who is not from the area.
Deb Tait, MacKenzie’s daughter and a veteran Woodstock city councillor, and Rick Roth, former communications director to former Trade Minister Ed Fast, were the other two candidates vying for the Conservative nomination in the riding.
After Khanna won, two riding association executives resigned. Tait also came out to endorse Hilderley.
MacKenzie won the riding with 47 per cent of the vote in the last election, followed by the Liberals at 20.5 per cent.
The candidates
Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount, Que.
The riding
Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount was created in 2015 after boundaries were redrawn in 2012. The riding became vacant when former minister Marc Garneau resigned his seat on March 8, 2023. He was first elected in 2008. The riding is a traditionally Liberal stronghold, even with the previous riding boundaries, but the NDP traditionally come in second place. Garneau received 53.8 per cent of the vote in the 2021 election while the NDP received 19.2 per cent. In 2011, it was a two-way race between Garneau and the NDP candidate. Garneau won the riding by just 642 votes.