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Voters are set to head to the polls on Monday in three federal by-elections with the trade war between Canada and the U.S. expected to be a key factor on many people’s minds.
Votes are taking place in British Columbia, Ontario and a third in Quebec following the resignations and departures of their MPs.
In B.C., the Liberals are hoping to hold on to North Vancouver-Capilano, which they’ve held since 2015. Most recently, it belonged to long-time MP and minister Jonathan Wilkinson who left to take on the role of Canada’s ambassador to the European Union.
Over the years, Wilkinson served as minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, minister of Environment and Climate Change and, in his last role, as minister of Energy and Natural Resources. He was dropped from cabinet following the 2025 federal election.
Braeden Caley, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s former deputy chief of staff and a senior staff member of his election campaign, is returning to his home province to run for the party.
Stephen Curran, a commercial lawyer who ran against Wilkinson last year, is returning to run for the Conservatives. He has run attack ads on social media against Caley, challenging his connection to the community.
Carrying the orange banner for the NDP is Stephen Tweedale. He is a party staffer for the local MLA, but could face an uphill battle as a federal candidate as the party received only four per cent of the vote in 2025 when the NDP’s support collapsed across the country.
A few provinces away in Ontario, Nate Erskine-Smith’s former seat in Beaches-East York is up for grabs.
First elected in 2015, Erskine-Smith was known as a Liberal who could be outspoken against some of his own government’s decisions. He held a ministerial post briefly in the waning days of Justin Trudeau’s leadership and was kept on by Carney going into the 2025 election. He then returned to backbenches when Carney named his post-election cabinet.
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The former MP is now running for Toronto city council after a failed attempt to be the candidate for the provincial Liberals in an upcoming byelection. He had also intended to also run for Ontario Liberal leadership but dropped those plans after a nomination contest loss.
Erskine-Smith’s former constituency office manager, Tanveer Shahnawaz, is running for the Liberals. He’ll face off against Shannon Devine for the NDP, who came in third in the 2025 vote. Jim Sybros is running for the Conservatives.
The third riding to watch will be in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, which became vacant after Carney named Conservative MP Richard Martel to the Senate.
Martel won in 2025 by a small margin, edging out candidates from both the Bloc Quebecois and the Liberals.
Daniel Gobeil, a dairy farmer and former president of a provincial dairy association, is holding the flag for the Liberals. Lawyer and teacher Regis Gaudreault is running for the Conservatives to try and keep the seat in the party’s hands. Caroline Dube, who served as director of the office of Bloc MP Mario Simard, is running for the Bloc.
Elections Canada issued a notice this weekend to remind people in the province that the by-election was for the federal riding as the province has a riding with the same name that will see a provincial election vote held Sept. 26.
The Saguenay region, where the riding is located, has been hit particularly hard by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. It’s a major producer of aluminum and forestry products, and home to a significant number of dairy farmers representing a sector that has become a target of the president due to Canada’s supply management system.
But that same trade war could help the Liberals in all three ridings.
According to a new poll by Ipsos for Global News, 44 per cent of Canadians say they’d vote for the Liberals if an election were held tomorrow compared to 33 per cent for the Conservatives, 10 per cent for the NDP and eight per cent for the Bloc.
Those numbers were strongest in B.C. with 46 per cent saying they’d vote Liberal and 49 per cent saying the same in Ontario. The Liberals also were ahead in Quebec, with 37 per cent saying they’d vote for the governing party, but the numbers were closer with 33 per cent supporting the Bloc Quebecois. The Conservatives trailed in third in Quebec at 22 per cent.
For all three provinces where a by-election is being held, the polling also showed majority support for Canada standing firm against the U.S. proposed deal, even if it meant higher tariffs and economic costs. About 65 per cent of B.C. and Ontario residents said they agreed with the decision, with 57 per cent saying the same in Quebec.
Unlike the by-elections held in April, the stakes are not as high for the parties.
The Liberals won all three votes, giving them 174 seats in the House of Commons, a slim but working majority. With Erskine-Smith and Wilkinson’s resignations, along with former MP Stephen Guilbeault officially resigning this past Friday and Shaun Chen earlier this month, the Liberals currently hold 170 seats.
That number is two seats below the number needed for a majority, though with opposition parties at just 166 seats the government does not need other MPs to vote with them to pass bills or win confidence motions.
Winning all three ridings Monday, however, could further strengthen their majority to 173 seats.
There also remain four more by-elections Carney will need to call in the coming months following Chen and Guilbeault’s departures, as well as the resignations of two Bloc Quebecois MPs to run in next month’s provincial election.
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