Ottawa

A trio of by-elections

In a release this morning, the Prime Minister announced byelections in Victoria, Calgary Centre and Durham. (A fourth byelection could be necessitated by the Supreme Court’s ruling on Etobicoke Centre this Thursday.) Bob Rae thinks the Prime Minister should’ve waited for the Supreme Court and added Labrador (Peter Penashue’s riding).

As Kady O’Malley notes, the Conservative party’s early line that “majority governments don’t win by-elections” is mostly nonsense. Two years ago, we did the math on the last thirty years of byelections—see here and here—and came to a similar conclusion.

Looking for more?

Get the Best of Maclean's sent straight to your inbox. Sign up for news, commentary and analysis.
  • By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.