Barbara Patrocinio

Reporter

Davis Legree

The Liberals' stunning loss in Toronto-St. Paul's last week has raised questions about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's future at the helm of the party, but also about whether the party has any 'safe seats' left in Ontario, considering its poor polling in the province, as well as across the country.

Ontario is the party's breadbasket. Nearly half of its MPs represent ridings in the country's most populous province, with the Liberals taking 78 of Ontario's 121 seats in the 2021 election. In short, the Liberals need to hold its Ontario ridings if the party hopes to win the next vote.

That makes the result of St. Paul's so unnerving to Liberals. Carolyn Bennett won the riding for the Liberals by 24 points in 2021. In fact, she won the seat by eight points in the party's 2011 election meltdown, where the Liberals were reduced to 34 seats.

But last week, Conservative Don Stewart flipped the riding from the Liberals, winning the riding by 1.5 points over Grit candidate Leslie Church. The shockwaves the victory has produced are still being felt, with Trudeau facing the most serious questions about his future at the helm of the party since he won the leadership in 2013.

This in part because the byelection results — coupled with a year of poor polling — suggest Liberal incumbents of all stripes are at threat of losing their seats unless the party can improve its fortunes.

 spoke to strategists from all political stripes and pollsters from Abacus Data, Liaison Strategies and Nanos Research to analyze what seats in the province the Liberals can still bank on and what ridings are seriously at risk.

We start our tour with a look at some of the safer Liberal seats in Ontario, according to pollsters and pundits.

Nik Nanos, chairman of Nanos Research, said these seats can be marked as safe because of a "combination of historical voting trends and the demographic composition of the riding."

“So if we look at one like Ottawa-Vanier, that has both a demographic profile that favours the Liberals, and a very long Liberal voting tradition, and when you look at Toronto Centre, and University-Rosedale, these are ridings that are more likely to fall into the tradition category,” Nanos said.

“In some of these ridings, splits between the Conservatives and the New Democrats actually helped the Liberals kind of pop up through the middle."

But David Coletto, Abacus Data CEO, cautioned that he Liberals don't have a lot of safe seats in Ontario.

“It is not looking good to me for them,” he said.

Located in central Toronto, the riding is currently represented by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who has held the seat since 2015. In the 2015 federal election, she secured 49.6 per cent of the vote, and in the 2019 election, she received 51.4 per cent. In 2021, Freeland got 47.4 per cent.

“The Conservatives are not as strong in that particular riding as they are in other parts of Toronto. And, you know, the same thing goes for the New Democrats. So there is a comfortable margin,” Nanos said.

Liberal strategist Andrew Perez, who runs a namesake communication firm, said that downtown Toronto ridings like University-Rosedale tend to be quite Liberal.

"The fact that [the riding] is held by Chrystia Freeland, who has huge name recognition, who has been a senior cabinet minister for nine years, is the finance minister, that might be hindrance, but for the Liberal voters in the riding who are still supporting this government, her name does help,” he said.

"Liberals are generally able to hold on to these highly urban ridings, even when they lose voters support."

Conservative strategist Jeff Rutledge acknowledged that University-Rosedale would be difficult to turn blue, but noted how the stunning result in Toronto-St. Paul’s suggested it might not be “untouchable.”

“Given its proximity to St. Paul's and some of the demographic mixes, I think it could potentially be in play,” said Rutledge, a vice-president at McMillan Vantage.

Located right next door, Toronto Centre has also been a longtime Liberal bastion. Since the early 1990s, most contests in this riding have been between the Liberals and NDP. It contains a large immigrant community, as well as the most densely populated neighbourhood in Canada, besides a historic LGBTQ2 neighbourhood.

Historically, the riding was one of the few in central Toronto where the Progressive Conservatives (which preceded the modern Conservative Party of Canada) usually did well. The PCs held the riding for 34 of the 58 years from 1935 to 1993. However, it has been in Liberal hands without interruption since 1993. As of the last election, the current MP is Liberal cabinet minister Marci Ien, who won in 2021 with 49.83 per cent of the vote.

Toronto Centre is another example of a riding considered safely red by multiple pollsters, but the Conservative operative Rutledge said it would also likely be a target of the Tory grassroots movement.

“Toronto Centre is an example where you have both ends of the financial spectrum,” Rutledge told 

 in an interview. “When you look at demographics of voter attention, I think you see there’s a despondency about the state of the Canadian dream.”

“I think that’s very much what [Conservative Leader Pierre] Poilievre has been able to tap into, and that’s what I think unlocks the potential in any of these ridings.”

Perez explained that the demographics help the Liberals, with the large LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized communities being a huge part of the riding.

“A long time ago, under the Mulroney era, when it was the Progressive Conservative Party, Conservatives sometimes won seats downtown Toronto, but I can’t see this happening anymore,” he said.

For Coletto, if the Liberals lose Toronto Centre, it's not clear where they can win.

“If they lose those seats, then they probably are close to being wiped out in Ontario,” he said.

In previous elections, the Conservatives have never threatened to flip Toronto Centre.

The riding, with a large Franco-Ontarian population in Vanier, is one of the most solidly Liberal in the country, having elected Liberals both federally and provincially in every election since its creation. Mona Fortier has held the seat since a 2017 byelection, when Mauril Belangier’s passing left the post vacant.

While both NDP and Conservative strategists said some previously Liberal seats in Ottawa could become battlegrounds in the next election, Ottawa-Vanier was considered a likely ‘hold’ for the Liberals.

“This would be a bitter loss for the Liberals, but I think they are relatively safe in the area,” David Valentin, CEO at Liaison strategies said.

Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith has represented this Toronto riding since 2015. In the 2019 federal election, Erskine-Smith secured the largest margin of victory (20,204 votes) and largest share of the vote (57.2 per cent) in the riding's history. It dipped only slightly in 2021.

“He [Erskine-Smith] ran for leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, he has been a maverick kind of MP. And this is a downtown Toronto riding, so if the Liberals lose this one, that would be big trouble,” Coletto said.

He added that Abacus Data’s model for the riding shows the Liberals shouldn't lose it because the NDP is not doing well enough.

This riding has been historically represented by the political centre to the left, with Maria Minna, a Liberal, being its longest representative to date, holding the office for six terms.

“The Liberals are benefiting from a split between the Conservatives and the New Democrats,” Nanos said.

NDP operative Erin Morrison, a principal at Morrison Comms Inc., said she viewed certain downtown ridings in Toronto as primary targets for New Democrats, namely Davenport and Toronto-Danforth. However, she stopped short of suggesting a New Democrat could replace Erskine-Smith as the representative for Beaches-East York.

The Liberal Party has held the riding since its creation in 1988, with John Manley being elected and followed by David McGuinty since 2004. The closest election was a seven-point Liberal win in 2006. The riding has voted Liberal even during Progressive Conservative and Conservative governments.

Dalton McGuinty, the former Liberal premier, represented the provincial iteration of the riding during his time in the Ontario legislature.

Given the state of the party's polling right now, the Liberals could lose a huge swath of seats in Ontario. While some appear to be foregone conclusions — barring a drastic reversal of fortunes — these ridings are shaping up to be close fights come election day.

This suburban Toronto riding is a former Liberal safe seat that was loss by the party in the 2011 election but recovered four years later. But unlike some of the other ridings reclaimed in the city, Eglinton-Lawrence hasn't quite been an easy hold for the Liberals since 2015, with Marco Mendicino keeping it by 12 points in 2021.

Nanos said if the Conservatives win a majority in the next election, this riding would be a prime candidate to flip.

“When the Conservatives win majority governments, like in 1984 and 1988, for example, they've traditionally done well in Toronto in certain ridings. And these are the same ridings that they are much more competitive in right now,” he said.

“When they start doing well in these ridings, it means that there's a national movement that's taking place and it's blowing up conservative fortunes in these in these bellwether ridings."

For Coletto, that's a high profile urban Toronto riding that the Conservatives could pick up.

"The Conservatives would likely win it today."

It's another riding that went blue in 2011 election but returned to the Liberals in 2015, though the party's share of the vote dwindled slightly in 2021. Rob Oliphant won re-election with 52.7 per cent of the vote in that election, compared to 35.5 per cent for the Tories.

“Don Valley West is being reconfigured. It'll be a little more troublesome. That's Rob Oliphant’s riding, and he has a strong name, but I would say the seat it's at risk for sure,” said Valentin.

The constitutionally-mandated decennial redistribution has changed the boundaries of some ridings in the province for the next election, with one seat — Don Valley East — completely eliminated.

Rutledge said Don Valley West was one of several west-end Toronto ridings that should be up for grabs whenever the writ drops.

“On the west end of the city, [Tories] will be looking at some of the ridings that we saw go blue provincially as well, like your Don Valleys that were very close in previous elections,” he said.

“I think they’re very much in play.”

It's another riding that the Conservatives snatched in 2011 but the Liberals have taken back. In 2021, Peter Fonseca won it with 50 per cent of the vote.

For Rutledge, many Mississauga-area ridings are potential pickups for the Tories.

“As the population has grown and diversified in some of these communities, you know, there's going to be huge, huge cultural politics at play,” he said.

“So, when you look at the Brampton, Mississaugas of the world, even Halton region, those are areas where it’s going to come down to ability to organize.”

Liberal cabinet minister Patty Hadju has held the riding since 2015, but the seat has gone back-and-forth between the Liberals and NDP over the years.

For Coletto, this is one of the most interesting seats at risk as the Conservatives could also make a run at it.

“This shows how the Conservatives are making gains in Northern Ontario. If a riding like this goes well, so too could Sudbury, so too could Sault Sainte Marie, so too could many of those Liberal and even NDP ridings like Timmins (...) could fall to the Conservatives, because they're making gains among blue collar, private sector, private unionized workers up in Northern Ontario,” he said.

The pollsters and strategists said a few ridings in the province appear to already be slipping out of the Liberals' grasp and should be counted as likely losses, barring a comeback from the party in the polls.

This has been a Liberal riding since it was first contested in 2015. Cabinet minister Jenna Sudds is serving her first time as MP after winning election in 2021. Pollsters say it's trending Tory.

“If an election was held today, the Conservatives would comfortably win Kanata,” Nanos said.

This Greater Toronto Area riding has had quite the history since being created nearly a decade ago.

As a Liberal, Leona Alleslev won the seat by a close margin in 2015, and she won re-election in 2019, but as a member of the Conservatives. However, she lost her bid for a third term in 2021, with Liberal Leah Taylor Roy narrowly wining.

But pollsters say it's on track to turn blue again.

“I don’t see how they could avoid losing there, the question for me is how big of a loss that would be for them,” Coletto said.

For Perez, when polls clearly show a loss, usually parties would save resources and not invest much in campaigning or even door-knocking to “save the furniture.”

“They won’t spend much on these ridings, they will focus on putting their resources into ridings that they can actually win,” he said.

The riding is currently represented by Liberal MP Tim Louis. In the 2019 election, this is one of only two ridings in the country in which the Liberal candidate unseated the Conservative incumbent. But the Conservatives are projected to win it back in the next vote.

“This would be a bitter loss, but a relatively predictable one,” Valentin said.

“The party is going through a lot under Trudeaus’ low popularity, and this is clearly reflected in the polls,” Perez added.

The Liberals have historically done very well York Centre, which is home to one of the largest Jewish populations of any riding in Canada. But as the Conservatives have made inroads with the Jewish community, it's become far more competitive in recent years.

Plus factor in frustration over the Liberals' support of the NDP's Gaza motion — which has been partly blamed for the party losing in St. Paul's — it's a prime pickup opportunity for the Conservaties, according to pollsters.

“After Toronto-St. Paul's, the next best riding [for the Conservatives in Toronto] is York Centre,” Nanos said.

The riding has been Liberal since it was created for the 2015 election, with Francesco Sorbara serving as its MP for the entirety of its history. However, the Conservatives held a previous iteration of the riding during the Harper government.

iPolitics spoke to strategists from all political stripes and pollsters from Abacus Data, Liaison Strategies and Nanos Research to analyze what seats in the province the Liberals can still bank on and what ridings are seriously at risk.

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