Political earthquake in Canada: Trudeau's party loses progressive stronghold in Toronto and doubts grow about the prime minister's leadership

In an unexpected turn of events, described as a political earthquake by the Canadian press, the Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, lost a progressive stronghold in Toronto to the Conservatives in a special parliamentary election.

Government agency elections Canada reported Tuesday that the opposition conservative candidate, Don Stewart, closely won the Toronto-St. Paul's district by nearly 600 votes.

In percentage terms, Stewart prevailed with 42.1 % over 40.5 % for the progressive candidate, Leslie Church.

This special election was held to replace a former Trudeau cabinet minister and elected member of Parliament, Carolyn Bennett, who had held the seat since 1997 and recently vacated the seat to become ambassador to Denmark.

This is a special election that could define Trudeau's political future, especially considering that Progressives had held the Toronto-St. Paul's seat since 1993.

While the district represents just one of 338 seats in Canada's House of Commons, the defeat for Trudeau's party comes at a sensitive time, just as the prime minister's leadership is in question, with the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, clearly dominating the polls by a margin ranging between 15 and 20 points heading into the October 2025 general election.

Indeed, while Trudeau has managed to maintain public support from members of his party, under anonymity progressives have gone to the press to call for Trudeau's resignation, who has maintained very low approval ratings for months now, with nearly 60% of Canadians disapproving of his performance as prime minister.

As reported by CBC News, in the halls of Parliament there are many of Trudeau's progressive allies who are concerned about the polls and the prime minister's performance.

"Several MPs from the Greater Toronto Area are afraid of losing their seats," said an Ontario elected official last week who requested anonymity to speak freely.

In fact, some MPs also spoke on anonymity and said they find it hard to believe that Trudeau will be able to survive the next election politically and that is why they believe a change of leadership is necessary at this time, when they still have a year to make up lost ground.

"We would be better off changing leaders for the good of our country," a Progressive MP who highly respects Trudeau told CBC News.

The lawmaker further fears that Trudeau's high unpopularity will be an anvil weighing on the Liberal Party's shoulders in the October 2025 election.

"Tomorrow morning, if we saw Justin Trudeau jump into a river to save two children being chased by a crocodile, people would say it was his fault," the lawmaker commented.

In this context, the Toronto-St. Paul's election resulted in a referendum to Trudeau among more affluent progressive voters.

Indeed, the defeated candidate, Leslie Church, was a former chief of staff to Trudeau's finance minister, Chrystia Freeland.

She acknowledged that progressive voters "sent us a clear message, that they want us to re-earn their trust."

She also stated that the party has 16 months to recover and will run again in October 2025. However, with tempers flaring, the big question is whether those months will be led by Trudeau or another member of the Liberal Party.

For the moment, pundits agree that the prime minister is badly wounded.

"The pressure on Trudeau to announce that he will be stepping down is now insurmountable," Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, told The Washington Post. "Toronto-St. Paul’s was one of only 40 seats the Liberals won when they experienced their worst performance ever, in 2011."

If the Liberals can't win this district in a special election, Wiseman concluded, “how can they hope to win a general election?”