Voters in Liberal stronghold will tell PM if they are fed up or satisfied with status quo.
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Election days aren’t normally filled with nerves for Liberals in Toronto–St. Paul’s. The party normally wins handily in this part of Toronto and has for more than 30 years.
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Monday will be a very different, nervous day for Leslie Church and her campaign team.
Church, the former chief of staff to finance minister Chrystia Freeland, is likely to squeeze out a win, but even she and her team know that Don Stewart, the Conservative candidate, could play spoiler here. Not that Stewart, his team or Conservative headquarters in Ottawa are playing up the idea that they are suddenly going to take this riding for the first time since 1988.
Every campaign, it seems, is playing down expectations.
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The final result will depend on which campaign does the best job at getting their vote out. Byelections have notoriously low voter turnout as the Durham byelection in March saw just 27% of voters cast a ballot, while in Calgary Heritage last year it was 28%.
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There are 84,442 voters on the official list, so if just 27% come out to vote we could see the next MP elected with fewer than 10,000 votes.
It’s normally thought that low voter turnout benefits the incumbent or incumbent party, but in this case it could help Stewart and the Conservatives. There are a lot of disaffected Liberals, including many who like Church but not Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and if they stay home on Monday, it hurts Church’s chance of winning.
Stewart, meanwhile, has a motivated voter base.
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He needs to tap into the many professionals who live in the riding, like family doctors angry about the capital gains tax changes. Stewart could also benefit from the support of the Jewish community in the riding, centred around the Forest Hill neighbourhood, switching from Liberal to Conservative.
In the final, frenzied, few days, Church was latching onto local issues like Premier Doug Ford’s decision to abruptly close the Ontario Science Centre over safety concerns due to a faulty roof.
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“Tomorrow, there’s a clear choice: Vote for someone who will stand up for science, arts and culture and not let Conservatives tear down the spaces and organizations that celebrate Canada and our kids!” Church posted to social media.
She also posted a video saying that if the Conservatives win the riding, they will take Canada backward by cutting health care and pensions. It sounded like a message from someone afraid of losing and it also made it sound like the whole government would change hands based on this byelection.
Like a lot of Liberals lately, Church speaks about problems that need to be fixed in this country as if the Trudeau Liberals haven’t been in power for nearly nine years.
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Stewart was focused more on door-knocking and connecting with voters than social media over the weekend. His message has been about stopping the crime wave, which is primarily auto thefts in the riding, dealing with affordability and standing with the Jewish community.
The weather forecast for Monday is warm and sunny with little chance of rain, so weather should not be a factor unless people would rather head to the park than the voting booth.
If Stewart can rally people in the riding to come out for him, he has a shot.
Let’s see if the voters of Toronto–St. Paul’s send Trudeau a message that it’s time for him to leave or if they tell the Liberals they are happy with the status quo.
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