The Liberals ‘won’ the two byelections on Monday, something which will be spun as showing their strength and supposedly strong prospects if Canada is plunged into an early election..However, the actual results show the Liberals are a weakened party..Justin Trudeau’s apparent willingness – even preference – for an early election was clearly based on watching what happened in New Brunswick, where the governing party gained support and won a majority, and BC, where the polls showed (and were confirmed in the results), that the governing party would gain seats and win a majority..Trudeau is hoping to replicate that, gaining support and turning his minority government into a majority, based on the government ‘response’ to the China Virus..Yet, a look at the York Centre and Toronto Centre results shows that – unlike in BC and New Brunswick – the governing Liberals have lost support..In 2019, the Liberals won York Centre with ease, as Liberal candidate Michael Levitt got 50 per cent of the vote, far ahead of the Conservatives at 37. The NDP got 10, and the Greens got 3..In 2020, the Liberals narrowly won it, with 46 per cent, while the Conservatives got 42. The NDP fell to 6, while the PPC got 4 and the Greens 3..In Toronto Centre, the Liberals won 57 per cent in 2019, compared to the NDP at 22, the Conservatives at 12, and the Greens at 7..In 2020, despite running a candidate with high name recognition – Marci Ien – the Liberals won just 42, compared to the Greens at 33, the NDP at 17 and the Conservatives at 6..So, in York Centre they dropped off 4, while in Toronto Centre they dropped off a full 15..The Liberals also appear to be under sustained assault from both the left and the right..In York Centre, the Conservatives boosted their vote total by 5 points, while in Toronto Centre the Greens boosted their vote total by 26..This could be a sign that the Liberals are losing support to the strongest perceived alternative, which would be the Conservatives in some cases, and the Greens in others..Now, this is of course a relatively small sample size, just two ridings..But politics is all about observing trends, and the Liberals losing support is a trend that has been ongoing since 2016..Following the 2015 election, the Liberals were for a time a very popular party, but the more Canadians saw Trudeau in office, the less they liked him..His poll numbers dropped steadily, with the Liberals only winning in 2019 due to their ability to make Andrew Scheer even less popular than Trudeau was, and barely held on to power with the weakest popular vote result of any ‘winning’ party..Trudeau’s numbers were continuing to be weak until the China Virus Crisis, at which point he – and nearly every politician on earth – got a boost in the polls..Yet, once the scandals and Liberal arrogance again became prominent, Trudeau’s poll numbers started to fall once again..And that brings us to these two by-elections..The Liberals are currently in the midst of unprecedented spending, spreading money across the nation at a record level..They had the ability to make government announcements during the by-election campaign, dominate the media landscape, and even ran a star candidate in one of the contested ridings..And, the elections were both in the GTA, an area the Liberals have heavily focused on locking in..Despite all of that, they still managed to lose a ton of support, and were only a few thousand votes away from losing two seats that they previously dominated..All of this shows that – far from being a party that is truly confident about victory in a snap election – the Liberals have been seriously weakened and are very vulnerable..Spencer Fernando is a columnist for the Western Standard and the owner/author of spencerfernando.com from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
