With Trudeau gone, it’s ‘night and day’ in a former Liberal fortress

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TORONTO — Seated in a restaurant around the corner from Toronto’s bustling Yonge Street on a drizzling afternoon, Leslie Church says her campaign couldn’t feel more different than the one she lost nine months earlier.

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“Night and day,” she says. “It is night and day.”

Church was the Liberals’ candidate when the party saw its stronghold of Toronto—St.Paul’s fall to the Conservatives after having held it for more than 30 years, which made the defeat no ordinary loss.

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It burst open what until then had been long-simmering concerns among Liberals that the party was destined for defeat with former prime minister Justin Trudeau at the helm, given his unpopularity with Canadians.

That loss shocked most observers, including top Conservatives who themselves were not expecting to win. For Church, who spent years working as a chief of staff for different ministers, including to former finance minster Chrystia Freeland, it came as no surprise.

“We always knew that that was at a moment in time when it was going to be a tough fight,” she told National Post.

“I cannot describe how different it feels right now.”

Chief among the differences is the fact that Trudeau is gone, replaced by Liberal Leader Mark Carney.

Affordability, another issue that dogged the Liberals coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic as interest rates and food prices soared, has for many been replaced by concerns about U.S. President Donald Trump’s attitude towards Canada and his ensuing trade war — a matter that Carney is pitching himself as best placed to handle, given his experience managing central banks in the U.K. and Canada.

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“It was peak fatigue around Trudeau,” Church said of her loss. Now, she says, “Trump has changed everything.”

That mixture spells trouble for the Conservatives’ incumbent candidate Don Stewart. He won last year’s byelection by only about 600 votes. Tories see the campaign to keep the riding as a tough one.

They need to know, voters, that the Conservative party is not a scary party

Successive public opinion polls suggest the lead the Conservatives enjoyed when they captured the riding to have all but disappeared, with the party now tied or trailing the Liberals.

One factor Stewart must contend with is the fact that votes that swung his way the last time around were motivated by a visceral anti-Trudeau sentiment.

Such was the case for resident Michael Willmot. While he voted for Stewart in the byelection, he now finds himself undecided.

“I got a flyer from him the other day,” he said of Stewart’s campaign. “It was (the) same old boring stuff, axe the tax, building and housing and we’ll … make a new Canada.”

“That’s tiresome,” Willmot says. “He’s been on that for too long.”

Carney, on the other hand, has impressed him. “He’s had two monstrous appointments,” he said of the Liberal leader’s time spent as a central banker.

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While he finds Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to be a “good fellow,” Willmot suggests his long career in politics leaves him lacking in other experience. “He didn’t run anything.”

Another factor is that with a new leader, longtime Liberals feel like returning to the party.

“If he was still running, I wouldn’t have voted Liberal,” Peter Bird, who lives in the riding but hails from Quebec and has been Liberal since childhood, said of Trudeau. “Mark Carney, yeah, I’m voting for him.”

Carney’s win of the Liberal leadership race traces through the riding itself, with Toronto—St. Paul’s where he earned the third-highest level of support among party members —  which is another plus for Church, who says Liberal voters are enthusiastically behind him.

Stopping by Stewart’s campaign office, located only several blocks away from Church’s, his campaign manager politely informed National Post he would not be granting interviews.

Inside his office, displays of white and blue balloons decorate parts of the room, with the date of advance polls opening on April 19 marked on papers attached to the wall and on otherwise-empty tables, with the beginnings of a list of volunteers who could help.

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The local campaign has a strong ground game, says Brian Mitchell, a volunteer on Stewart’s team and a longtime party supporter, who had been canvassing apartments last Saturday.

“We all have to work hard. We all have to do our bit, and he’s better known now,” Mitchell says. “I’m encouraged that he will be able to hold the riding.”

While his campaign will be a fight, Stewart’s support within the riding is visible. Blue campaign signs dot boulevards and lawns around nearby neighbourhoods.

At one point, a woman also opens his campaign office door to say the only thing she wanted to tell those inside was, “Go Don!”

From a back room, Stewart’s campaign manager says she’ll take it.

Since his win, Stewart has been seen as both a star and a source of hope for Conservatives, given he proved it was possible to flip a long-held Liberal riding in Toronto to Tory blue.

Speaking at an event for the Conservatives’ Beaches-East York candidate last month, some clips of which were shared on Facebook, Stewart described the fight for that Liberal-held riding as being not much dissimilar to his. “And that’s a very tall hill to climb.”

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“They need to know, voters, that the Conservative party is not a scary party,” Stewart said in another part of the video, which was shared on March 7.

“I’m a centre candidate, I just happen to be fiscally conservative,” he said during his speech, adding that the Conservatives were the only federal party to respect taxpayers.

Back in the restaurant, another issue that Church says hurt her campaign last time which is not an issue now was the Liberals’ proposed capital gains tax hike, which Carney cancelled after he was sworn in as prime minister.

Another matter she hears about daily remains antisemitism, she says.

As a riding, Toronto—St.Paul’s boasts the fifth highest number of Jewish voters in the country.

“We still have a lot of work to do within the Jewish community to build trust,” Church said of the Liberals.

“We actually needed faster action on antisemitism, for example, on our streets … it’s not enough to do to offer thoughts and prayers.”

During last year’s byelection, the Conservatives made a direct appeal to the Jewish community, including in a letter sent to households ahead of the vote, outlining what they described as a failure of Trudeau to stem “Jew hatred” that had spiked in the aftermath of Hamas’ attacks on southern Israel in October 2023, which triggered Israel’s ongoing war with Gaza.

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Since then, police in Toronto have reported a rise in violence which they have deemed as antisemitic.

During the byelection race, the group Jewish Ally formed as a third-party advertiser to encourage Jewish voters to cast a ballot against the Liberals.

As of Monday, they were not registered in the current federal election.

Asked whether she has raised the community’s concerns with Carney, Church hands over a campaign leaflet she passes out to those whom the issue is top of mind, outlining the plan she has to address the rise in antisemitism, pointing to one of the faces on the page: Marco Mendicino.

“This is his chief of staff right now,” she said of the former public safety minister.

As the Liberal MP for the neighbouring riding of Eglinton—Lawrence, which also boasts a high Jewish population, he was outspoken on the issue and voiced a strong pro-Israel stance. While Church advertises his new role, some Muslim supporters and advocacy groups took issue with Mendicino’s new role, given several of his positions taken, such as opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza.

As Church left the restaurant to return to door-knocking, Liberals believe that enough has changed for the party to once again return the riding red.

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“The context is totally different,” said voter Michael Dewson

“I’m very positive.”

National Post, with additional reporting from the Canadian Press

staylor@postmedia.com

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