Trudeau’s fragile leadership tested by tight race in his hometown

Should the Liberals lose the seat, the calls for Justin Trudeau to resign will certainly become louder

Author of the article:

Bloomberg News

Mathieu Dion

Published Sep 13, 2024  •  Last updated 2 minutes ago  •  5 minute read

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raises the hand of Laura Palestini, Liberal candidate for LaSalle–Emard–Verdun at her riding headquarters in Montreal on Sunday August 11, 2024. Photo by Peter McCabe /The Canadian Press

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, fresh from a bruising loss in a Toronto special election, now faces a fight that may deliver the knockout blow — a vote in the heart of his Montreal hometown.

The Canadian leader has pushed back against calls for his resignation from opponents and even some members of his Liberal Party. But it’s harder to dismiss voters. They voiced their displeasure with the government in June by rejecting a Liberal candidate in a party stronghold in Toronto, and now have the same opportunity in a district known as LaSalle-Emard-Verdun.

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For most of the past few decades — and for Trudeau’s nearly nine years as prime minister — this densely populated and diverse area south of downtown Montreal has been held by the Liberals. The seat became open after Trudeau ejected his justice minister from cabinet last summer, leading the minister to then quit politics. But polls suggest the Sept. 16 vote is a toss-up between his party and the separatist Bloc Quebecois, with the left-wing New Democratic Party close behind.

Special elections to fill vacant seats, known in Canada as byelections, normally draw little attention, but the surprise win for the Conservatives in Toronto-St. Paul’s on June 24 raised the stakes for Trudeau.

He’s held power since 2015 through electoral dominance of Canada’s largest cities. In the 2021 election, the Liberals took LaSalle-Emard-Verdun easily, winning by 20 percentage points. If the party loses here, it will only amplify talk that Trudeau is finished as a political force.

“The fact that there’s suspense in the southwest portion of Montreal, that Liberals could be in danger, what does that say for the rest of the country?” said Philippe J. Fournier, editor-in-chief of polling aggregator website 338Canada. “If the Liberals start losing seats in Montreal and Toronto, then not much is left.”

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Voters across Canada are frustrated with the lingering effects of inflation, especially high housing costs. Fournier’s model predicts that if a general election were held today, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives would win a large majority of seats with 42% of the national vote, 17 percentage points ahead of Trudeau’s party.

The Conservatives aren’t competitive in LaSalle-Emard-Verdun, as Montrealers skew progressive on issues such as climate change. But bitterness over wealth inequality is evident in a city that is seeing both gentrification and a surge of people in need of affordable housing.

Along the leafy residential streets of the district, rows of brown brick multiplex houses stretch toward busy retail hubs, with some quieter single-family home neighborhoods nestled into the mix. About two-thirds of residents are renters. People from all origins live here — while French and English are the most common mother tongues, Spanish, Mandarin, Italian and Arabic can also be heard.

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A potential strike by Air Canada pilots next week, with flight cancellations likely starting this Sunday, may come into play in the vote. Trudeau is under pressure from the airline and business groups to prevent a strike. In August, the government stepped in to quickly end a work stoppage at the country’s major railways. It’s not necessarily something that’s well-received by progressive, pro-union voters.

The New Democratic Party senses an opportunity. “If you feel like life has gotten harder under Justin Trudeau, if you feel like he’s abandoned you, here’s your chance to send a message,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said at a recent event to support his candidate, Craig Sauve.

Sauve is a popular city councilor in the area with a strong social media game. He successfully advocated for Montreal to officially declare itself a “heavy metal city” in 2019. “I would be happy to be the spoilsport for the Liberals in this byelection,” he said in an interview.

However, some say the real spoilsport could be the Bloc Quebecois, which advocates for Quebec’s interests in Ottawa. “There’s a chaotic scenario where there’s a perfect Liberal-NDP split and the Bloc Quebecois gets in between and wins it,” said Fournier.

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Sauve was chosen to represent the NDP in April and has been campaigning ever since. New Democrats hope that the recent end of a parliamentary power-sharing pact with the Liberals will send a message that a vote for their candidate is not a vote for Trudeau.

The Liberal candidate, Laura Palestini, was announced only in the middle of July after the party struggled to find a more well-known candidate, according to people familiar with the matter. She’s also a city councilor, but not as recognizable.

Election posters for Liberal candidate Laura Palestini and Conservative candidate Louis Ialenti for the by-election in the LaSalle–Émard–Verdun riding in Montreal Thursday September 5, 2024. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette

On Wellington Street, a retail strip of small shops and restaurants, Palestini’s campaign signs are scarce compared with her rival’s. The Liberal Party did not respond to Bloomberg’s requests to meet with Palestini, but said in an emailed statement that “Liberals are grateful to have her as our candidate in this upcoming byelection.”

Trudeau and many cabinet ministers have made appearances to help her, but more than 50 pro-Palestinian Liberal staffers refused to assist with the campaign because of frustration with the government over the Israel-Hamas conflict. The war has polarized Canadians and this district is no exception. Sauve has made his views clear — on one campaign pamphlet, he appears in front of a Palestinian flag.

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Should the Liberals lose the seat, the calls for Trudeau to resign will certainly become louder. But the support of his 154-member caucus appears to be holding together for now, and the prime minister has insisted he’s looking forward to going head-to-head with Poilievre in an election, which could come any time in the next year.

Ultimately, the Liberals’ biggest risk in LaSalle-Emard-Verdun is that their voters will stay home. “The Liberals should win, but they don’t have the lead they would normally have,” said Jeremy Ghio, a former Liberal staffer turned political commentator. “With Craig Sauve, the New Democrats have never been so mobilized, because they really believe in it.”

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