Conservatives put pressure on Trudeau with Toronto St-Paul’s by-election win – BBC News

The Conservatives have narrowly snatched the Toronto-St Paul’s seat from the Liberals, in a huge political upset that is expected to intensify political pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Candidate Don Stewart won the closely watched by-election by a little more than 500 votes.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre described Mr Stewart’s win as a “shocking upset”, saying locals “voted to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime”.

Canadian political experts have described the loss as a shocking embarrassment to Mr Trudeau and his party, as the electoral district was considered a Liberal stronghold – the party had held it for 30 years.

Conservatives have long struggled to win support in “Canada’s major urban cores”, so it is remarkable that they have successfully “penetrated fortress Toronto”, said Alex Marland, a politics professor at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

Mr Stewart won with around 42% of the vote, with 15,555 ballots cast for him, according to Elections Canada. Liberal candidate Leslie Church took 14,965.

Vote counting continued into the early hours of Tuesday morning, after Liberals remained in the lead for the first seven hours of tallying.

In a statement on Tuesday, Mrs Church said the “close result is disappointing, but it is a beginning, not an end”.

“Yesterday, voters in Toronto–St. Paul’s sent us a clear message, that they want us to re-earn their trust. I hear that message loud and clear, and that’s exactly what we plan to do.”

The outcome comes as Mr Trudeau has seen a significant drop in his popularity since taking over as PM in 2015, due to a host of issues including cost-of-living pressures affecting the population.

“Liberals should be concerned that public opinion polls showing frustration with their party is not a blip or an aberration,” Mr Marland told BBC News.

A recent Ipsos poll for Global News suggested that as many as 68% of Canadians want Mr Trudeau to step down.

However, the Canadian prime minister has repeatedly pledged to lead his party into the next nationwide poll – which is expected by October next year.

Conservatives had said they did not expect to win the Toronto-St Paul’s seat. Canadian political experts have said that if the Liberals can lose a seat in downtown Toronto, they could lose anywhere.

Former MP Carolyn Bennett won the seat nine times before her recent resignation to become the country’s ambassador to Denmark.

Tari Ajadi, a politics professor at McGill University in Montreal, told BBC News that in previous years the seat would have been a “foregone conclusion” for Liberals, so “the result should terrify” the party as it struggles to reach voters.

“The win sets up what is likely to be a ‘change’ election next year, which puts the Liberals at a distinct disadvantage,” he said, noting that the Conservative victory “cannot be attributed to a single issue”.