Liberals easily hold Ottawa-Vanier in byelection fight

By Dustin Cook

Liberal candidate Mona Fortier won the Ottawa-Vanier byelection Monday night to become the first woman to represent the federal riding.

The byelection was held to fill the seat formerly held by longtime Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger, who died from ALS in August 2016. Bélanger had represented the riding since 1995.

Fortier’s victory with 51.2 per cent of the vote — well ahead of second-place finisher Emilie Taman of the NDP — maintained the constituency as a Liberal stronghold, which has been held by a Liberal since its creation in 1935.

The April 3 byelection was one of five across the country for vacant seats in the House of Commons. None of the seats changed hands, but this was not surprising because all of the ridings in question are considered strongholds for their respective parties.

The Conservative party easily held onto the two seats up for grabs in Calgary, and the Liberals again won in the Quebec riding of Saint-Laurent and the Toronto-area riding of Markham-Thornhill.

All of the seats were previously held by high-profile MPs from the respective parties — including former prime minister Stephen Harper in Calgary — that were vacated since the last election.

Ottawa-Vanier had the highest voter turnout of the five, with 34.1 per cent according to the Elections Canada preliminary results. The NDP’s Taman took 28.7 per cent of the vote, while Conservative candidate Adrian Papara finished third with 15.4 per cent.

The race was considerably closer than the 2015 election, when Taman also finished second but with only 19.25 per cent of the vote.

Not surprisingly, voter turnout for the byelection was much lower than it was for the 2015 general election. About 74 per cent of eligible electors in Ottawa-Vanier voted in 2015, more than double the percentage of voters who cast ballots in the byelection.