Trudeau says Canadians need to ‘be more engaged’ after humbling byelection loss

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet insisted Tuesday that nothing needs to change, after his party lost yet another safe seat in a Montreal byelection.

“We need people to be more engaged. We need people to understand what’s at stake in this upcoming election. Obviously, it would have been nicer to be able to — to win and hold Verdun — but there is more work to do and we’re going to stay focused on doing it,” Trudeau said before his cabinet met Tuesday morning.

The Liberals lost the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun by just over 200 votes in a byelection on Monday. The riding had been a Liberal stronghold with the party winning it by more than 20 per cent of the vote in previous campaigns, when former justice minister David Lametti was the candidate.

Trudeau said Canadians need to fully understand the stakes of the next election and his party needs to do more work selling that message.

“The big thing is to make sure that Canadians understand that the choice they get to make in the next election about the kind of country we are really matters, and that’s the work we’re going to continue to do,” he said.

The loss comes just months after the Liberals lost a byelection in Toronto—St. Paul’s, which was also considered a safe seat.

The prime minister’s cabinet echoed his position that it was about engaging with Canadians and delivering more.

Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the moment called for his party to continue working.

“We need to be humble. Every time Canadians express themselves, we have to listen and be humble. I would say we need to redouble efforts as well to show that the Liberal team is the best team to deliver.”

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said it was about showing Canadians the stakes.

“It’s important that Canadians are reflecting on what the alternatives are. You can have Mr. Poilievre and his austerity and cuts and his denial of climate change, or you can continue on with the work that we are doing,” he said.

Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal also suggested Canadians need to know what’s at stake.

“The message I took is that we have a lot of work to do to get people to come out to the polls and vote, because the next election is going to be about what sort of Canada Canadians want.”

Winning Bloc Québécois MP Louis-Philippe Sauvé becomes the party’s 33rd MP in the House of Commons, putting the Liberals and the Bloc in a tie in Québec.

Sauvé said he is eager to get to work.

“I was confident that I could win through hard work and yesterday evening’s events proved me right,” he said. “Our people have not had a member of parliament for eight months, so we have to get to work!”

The party’s leader Yves-François Blanchet said his party never took the race for granted.

“Two months ago, a win would have been considered absolutely impossible. A week ago, the Liberals were in the lead, we felt the NDP was very present in Verdun and the polls said it was the Bloc in the lead. It was a total mess. It was totally unpredictable and we had to contain expectations.”

He said the byelection win doesn’t change his thinking about a potential confidence vote.

“Mr. Trudeau must not have had a pleasant night. I will let him do his analyses. My job is not to replace a Prime Minister Trudeau with a Prime Minister Poilievre who are in roughly the same place on the fundamental issues.”

More to come …

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