Terrebonne federal byelection results: Tight race expected again between Liberals and Bloc

This report will be updated tonight with results.

Polls will close at 8:30 p.m. Monday in Terrebonne, capping off a hard-fought rematch between federal Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste and Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, whose previous battle for the seat a year ago led to a Supreme Court ruling overturning the result.

Both parties’ electoral machines have in recent weeks descended on the riding on Montreal’s north shore, where hundreds of volunteers — including Liberal cabinet ministers and MPs from both parties — made their case to voters.

The Terrebonne byelection is one of three federal byelections taking place Monday, with voters also casting ballots in the Toronto ridings of Scarborough Southwest and University-Rosedale. While a tight race between the Bloc and Liberals was predicted in Terrebonne, victory for the Liberals is considered all but assured in the two Toronto ridings.

In last year’s general election, Auguste, 24, unseated incumbent MP Sinclair-Desgagné by just one vote, winning the traditional Bloc stronghold by just one vote after a judicial recount. But after a Bloc voter reported that an Elections Canada error had seen her ballot returned to her instead of being counted, Sinclair-Desgagné launched a legal challenge that in February resulted in the Supreme Court annulling Auguste’s victory, ending her brief tenure in Ottawa and requiring a repeat of the 2025 electoral contest.

While the Bloc fights to take back the riding, the federal Liberals will be hoping to add an extra MP to their government, which in recent months has been inching toward majority status. Since November, four Conservative and one NDP MP have left their parties to join Mark Carney’s Liberals.

Coming into Monday’s byelections, Carney’s government was just one MP shy of the 172 needed to form a majority.

The riding has been targeted by the Longest Ballot Committee, which signed up dozens of independent candidates to protest the first-past-the-post electoral system. With the ballot listing a total of 48 candidates, of which 41 are officially independent, voters were given a write-in ballot and asked to write the name of their chosen candidate.

Elections Canada warned that the high number of candidates could delay results for this riding. In an effort to expedite the process, the agency said it planned to begin counting votes cast in advance polls two hours before regular polls close, but won’t release results until all voting is done.

Jack Wilson

I've reported for The Gazette since 2024. I love covering a good politics story, but any day I tell Montrealers something new about the world around them feels like a good one. Got a tip for me? Email me at [email protected]

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