Voters in four federal ridings are sticking with the status quo, returning two Liberals and two Conservatives to Parliament after byelections in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.
CBC News projects Liberals Ben Carr in Winnipeg South Centre and Anna Gainey in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount and Conservatives Arpan Khanna in Oxford and Branden Leslie in Portage-Lisgar will win their respective races.
That means the party standings in the House of Commons are unchanged after Monday’s vote.
The four seats in question have long been considered safe for the parties that currently hold them.
If any of these ridings had changed hands, it would have been a major upset.
But the results may serve as a barometer reading on how voters in four geographically diverse ridings perceive the current state of affairs and the leaders of Canada’s two major political parties.
Liberal candidates defy polls to win 2 seats
While national polls say support for the Liberal government has slumped after eight years in power, Trudeau’s candidates handily won in two seats — and came closer than expected in a third.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s candidate in the rural Manitoba riding of Portage-Lisgar beat back a challenge from Maxime Bernier, the leader of the far-right People’s Party, but the Conservative contender, Damir Stipanovic, in a Winnipeg-area seat that has gone Tory before floundered in Monday’s vote.
The result in Oxford, a southwestern Ontario riding near London, was also closer than some Conservative party operatives had expected with Liberal candidate David Hilderley registering a vote share not seen by that party in a long time.
Conservative candidate Arpan Khanna is pictured at his victory party in the southwestern Ontario riding of Oxford. Khanna previously ran for the party in Brampton, Ont. (Isha Bhargava/CBC News)
As of 12:50 a.m. ET, Khanna had 42.5 per cent of the vote compared to 36.5 per cent for Hilderley.
The seat has had a conservative-leaning MP for the last 70 years except for a period in the 1990s and early 2000s when the right-of-centre vote was split between the Progressive Conservative and Reform/Canadian Alliance parties.
Tory who stepped down backed Liberal candidate
Longtime Conservative MP Dave MacKenzie triggered the byelection when he stepped down in January.
His daughter Deb Tait ran for the party’s nomination and lost to Khanna, a lawyer who previously ran for the party in Brampton, Ont. — a result that prompted accusations by Tait of wrongdoing, which the party has denied.
Tait, a Woodstock city-county councillor, claimed the party favoured her rival and she raised questions about voter ID verification during the nomination race.
In an unusual move, MacKenzie and Tait endorsed Hilderley, a retired principal and real estate agent, over Khanna, who has been called a “parachute candidate” for his tenuous connection to the riding.
The party infighting ultimately didn’t cost the Conservatives the seat — but a sizeable swing to the Liberals in a long-held seat may prompt some soul-searching at Tory headquarters.
There were 10 candidates on the ballot in the federal riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Westmount in Montreal. (CBC)
“One thing is clear — people believe in Pierre Poilievre’s positive vision for our country. We need more freedom in Canada,” Khanna said in his victory speech.
“For the farmer who’s putting food on our tables but is having trouble putting food on his own table because of the carbon tax, for the senior who’s on a fixed pension struggling to make ends meet, we hear you and I’ll fight for you every single day,” Khanna said.
The Liberal candidates in two party strongholds in Manitoba and Quebec have also won their respective seats and so too has a Conservative in rural Manitoba, CBC News projects.
Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada, speaks to reporters in Winnipeg on May 16, 2023 after appearing in court and being fined $2,000 for breaking COVID-19 restrictions in Manitoba in 2021. (Steve Lambert/Canadian Press)
Voters in the Montreal-area riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount have elected Liberal Anna Gainey to Parliament.
The result is not unexpected given that the seat is among the safest Liberal ridings in the country.
As of 11:55 p.m. ET, Gainey had roughly 50 per cent of the vote — about the same as what former cabinet minister and astronaut Marc Garneau fetched in the 2021 election.
While it’s considered a Liberal stronghold, many anglophones in the riding were angered by the government’s recent overhaul of the Official Languages Act.
Gainey is a personal friend of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and previously served as the party’s president. Given those close ties, Gainey is a contender for a cabinet post in a future shuffle.
Gainey beat Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault, a political neophyte who was elected along with MP Elizabeth May last year to lead the party. Pedneault was poised to finish fourth.
Tory on track to defeat Maxime Bernier in Portage-Lisgar
Further west, voters in the Manitoba riding of Portage-Lisgar have elected Conservative Branden Leslie to the House of Commons, CBC News projects.
Leslie had a commanding 65 per cent of the vote cast as of 12:55 a.m. ET — a tally that suggests he’s likely to trounce his main opponent, People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier.
The former Quebec MP parachuted into the riding to try to win his party’s first seat.
That effort appears to have failed with voters choosing Leslie, a former political staffer who worked for a grain farmers’ advocacy group, instead.
Conservative candidate Branden Leslie is seen at his victory party in the rural Manitoba riding of Portage-Lisgar. (Ian Froese/CBC News)
Bernier chose to run in the riding because it’s one where the People’s Party performed best in the COVID-era 2021 federal election. The party’s electoral future is in question after Bernier’s poor showing.
Despite the lopsided loss, Bernier vowed to run again in the riding in the next general election.
“I’ll be back here,” he said in an interview with CBC News at his election watch party.
“It’s the beginning of a quiet, peaceful, commonsense revolution and you don’t do that in one election,” he said.
“For me, the most important thing is to grow our support and that’s happening and I will build from there for the next election.”
Bernier said the People’s Party is “the only national political party thinking about important issues” like relitigating the legal status of abortion, stopping what he calls “toxic transgender ideology,” and ending the country’s overreaction to climate change.
“Our opponent and the establishment try to say, ‘Oh no, those issues are settled.’ Well, they’re not,” he said.
Leslie and Bernier traded barbs throughout the campaign. Bernier has called his opponent a “fake” conservative. Leslie, in turn, has called Bernier “an opportunist from Quebec who will say or do anything he thinks people want to hear.”
To take on the far-right Bernier, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre visited the riding and used rhetoric targeting the World Economic Forum — an international organization that has become a focus of many right-wing conspiracy theories online — during a stump speech.
The riding, long held by former interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen, is among the safest Conservative seats in the country.
Liberal Ben Carr takes Winnipeg South Centre
Also in Manitoba, voters have returned school principal and former political staffer Ben Carr to represent Winnipeg South Centre the House of Commons, CBC News projects.
Carr was running to replace his late father, Jim, who died of cancer in December.
The urban riding has been in the Liberal win column for decades — except for a four-year gap period after the 2011 election that produced a Conservative majority.
As of 12:50 a.m., Carr had about half of the vote — roughly six points better than what his father achieved in the 2021 election.
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
