Liberals retake Outremont with by-election victory; Singh wins in Burnaby South

Analysis: Jagmeet in Commons, budgets coming Tom Mulcair looks at the latest political developments in Ottawa and Quebec City

It was a defeat for the New Democratic Party and a victory for the Liberals in the hotly contested by-election in Outremont on Monday night.

Rachel Bendayan won a convincing victory in a riding that had become a battleground between the Liberals and NDP.

"I feel so proud to be representing this incredible community. I think it's the most amazing part of Montreal and Canada," said Bendayan.

Minister of Tourism Melanie Joly was among the many Liberal MPs showing her support for Bendayan.

She did not hesitate to say that Bendayan's win was a sea change among Quebec voters.

"What I can say is clearly this is the end of the Orange Wave in Quebec," said Joly, referencing the 2011 election where Quebec voters overwhelming chose NDP candidates.

Outremont was the first riding in the province to vote NDP, with Thomas Mulcair winning in 2007. Four years later there were 59 NDP MPs from Quebec in the House of Commons.

Now the NDP wave has receded.

"We're a very strong team in Quebec. We have 40 MPs now, and we will continue to make sure that Quebec is well represented, and Rachel's election tonight is another testimony to what's going on," said Joly.

The riding was left without an MP following the retirement from politics of former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair. Mulcair last won the riding in the 2015 federal election, but stepped down from the NDP leadership following a disappointing showing for the party.

He stayed on as an MP until August 2018.

Despite his history with the NDP, Mulcair had said he expected a  Liberal victory, but after the Trudeau government’s handling of a controversy involving engineering firm SNC Lavalin, said he believed the vote would be a close one.

Prior to Mulcair’s tenure, Outremont had almost exclusively been represented by Liberals in Parliament since the riding’s creation in 1935. The Progressive Conservative Party’s Jean-Pierre Hogue won the riding in 1988, but was replaced by Liberal Martin Cauchon in the 1993 election.

Singh joins the House of Commons

In the British Columbia riding of Burnaby South, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh passed a pivotal test by winning a seat.

Singh won just under 40 per cent of the ballots cast in the riding.

Critics had said that should he lose, Singh’s political future would be in doubt, with many doubting his ability to lead the party during the upcoming federal election campaign without holding a seat of his own.

In Monday’s third by-election, in the Toronto-area riding of York-Simcoe, Conservative Scot Davidson proved victorious. The riding had been represented since 2004 by fellow Conservative Peter Van, who announced his retirement in July 2018.