Conservative Party leader returns to parliament after cruising to victory in by-poll

Toronto: Canada’s Parliament testament feature familiar spirit enter indorse as Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre was elected to the House of Commons from a rural constituency in the province of Alberta in a by-election on Monday.

Poilievre comfortably won the contest for Battle River-Crowfoot over his rivals. Within an hour of ballots being cast, Canadian networks projected that Poilievre had swept to victory with his closest rival, independent candidate Bonnie Critchley garnering a fraction of his level of support.

The trend became obvious once polls closed on Monday evening and the first results trickled in as Poilievre appeared to be cruising with over 80% of the vote share.

Advance polls for the by-election witnessed a higher turnout than the Federal election this year, with 220 more voters turning out.

He was trying to regain a seat in parliament after suffering a shock defeat from Carleton in Ontario in the April Federal election. He lost to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy by over a 4% margin. Poilievre had represented Carleton in the House since 2015.

While Battle River-Crowfoot is considered a safe Conservative seat in rural Alberta, the high-profile nature of the by-election, resulted in a spike in early voter turnout. The riding spans over 52,000 square kilometres, an area larger than the norther Indian state of Punjab.

Poilievre will face off against Prime Minister Mark Carney in parliament for the first time when it resumes sitting in mid-September. Andrew Scheer was serving as the interim leader of the principal opposition party in the House.

In a release on Wednesday, Elections Canada said 14,454 voters participated in the advanced polls.

Conservative candidate Damien Kurek swept to victory with nearly 83% of the vote share in the Federal election, but later resigned the seat so Poilievre could be re-elected to the House.

The by-election witnessed the largest number of candidates participating in the contest, with 214 registered. That’s part of a campaign by the so-called Longest Ballot Committee to protest Canada’s electoral system. That Committee was also involved in the Carleton election, which 81 candidates.

However, the by-election did not feature the longest ballot in Canadian history as Elections Canada adopted an “adapted ballot” with a blank space for the voter to write the name or initials of the candidate of their choice.

On its website, Elections Canada said, “This is due to a higher than usual number of candidates and limitations of the large ballots that have been used in some previous elections.”

This replaced the typical list-style ballot used for elections.

However, after an epic loss in the Federal election, Poilievre has other challenges ahead of him beyond PM Carney.

Poilievre’s leadership will be reviewed by the party in January next year, after the Conservatives squandered a double-digit lead they enjoyed till the end of December 2024, and couldn’t even emerge as the single largest group in the House.

However, once the extremely unpopular incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to resign and replaced with Carney, the ruling party managed to turn the tables. The final result in April kept Carney was PM, heading a minority government with the Liberals taking 169 seats as against 144 for the rival Conservatives.

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