A by-election was held in the federal riding of Toronto—St. Paul's in Ontario, Canada on June 24, 2024, following the resignation of incumbent Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett.

The race was considered by some as a referendum on the premiership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The election was won by Conservative Party candidate Don Stewart, making him the first Conservative MP since 1993 to represent the riding. The byelection had notably higher turnout than other contests to the 44th Canadian Parliament and garnered national attention; a poll from Abacus Data in mid-July suggested that 63% of Canadians nationwide were aware of the outcome of this byelection, along with 70% of Liberal supporters. This resulted in a decline of confidence in Justin Trudeau among some Liberal caucus members and party supporters.

Background The riding of Toronto—St. Paul's was vacated on January 16, 2024, following the resignation of Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett. Bennett, most recently the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health in the government of Justin Trudeau, had held the seat since 1997. The race was considered by some as a "referendum" on the premiership of Trudeau.

Constituency Prior to the by-election, Toronto—St. Paul's was considered a safe Liberal seat in Midtown, Toronto. It had been held by the Liberals since the 1993 federal election. The Government of Canada announced measures to protect the by-election from foreign interference.

Candidates The Conservative Party nominated Don Stewart on January 24. He works for the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization. Stewart campaigned on the main tenets of the Conservative Party platform under Pierre Poilievre, including crime and support for Israel.

Running for the Liberal nomination was Leslie Church, former chief of staff to Chrystia Freeland. She later received formal approval to run for Liberal nomination in Toronto—St. Paul's in April 2024. She ran against Emma Richardson, a senior advisor with Global Affairs Canada's United Nations division. The Liberal nomination was held on May 1 with Church winning the nomination. In 2020, Church agreed to an ethics screen for being married to lobbyist "Sheamus Murphy..(who is) registered to lobby the Liberal government in relation to several major sectors with active policy files, including broadcasting, energy and pharmaceutical companies that are working on a COVID-19 vaccine." She would later be elected as the MP for this riding in the 2025 Canadian federal election, defeating Stewart in a rematch.

Other prospective candidates for the Liberal nomination who declined to run, included former Toronto city councillor Josh Colle; former Ontario MPP Eric Hoskins, who represented the area provincially from 2009 to 2018 and previously served in the provincial cabinets of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne, including as Minister of Health and Long-Term Care from 2014 to 2018; and Toronto city councillor Josh Matlow, who has represented the area municipally since 2010; Matlow ultimately decided not to run. With his riding set to merge with Scarborough Centre at the next election, Don Valley East MP Michael Coteau was seen as a potential candidate, in order to avoid a nomination battle with fellow Liberal MP Salma Zahid; Coteau ultimately declined to run.

The Rhinoceros Party announced that Sean Carson would be the candidate on January 13.

The NDP announced on April 17 that Amrit Parhar would be the candidate. She works as the Director of Programs at the Institute for Change Leaders, an organization that was founded by Toronto mayor, Olivia Chow. It was previously reported two days earlier by The Hill Times that MPP for Toronto—St. Paul's, Jill Andrew was considering seeking the nomination.

On May 17, the Centrist Party announced Ali Mohiuddin as their candidate.

On May 24, the Green Party announced that Christian Cullis, a constituent coordinator for Ward 11 city councillor Dianne Saxe, would be their candidate. Emma Richardson, who previously lost the Liberal nomination, also sought the Green Party nomination.

On May 28, the People's Party announced that Dennis Wilson would be their candidate.

The Longest Ballot Committee, a political movement focused on electoral reform in opposition to first-past-the-post-voting, and supporting proportional representation, targeted this by-election. This yielded a record 84 candidates, breaking the previous record of 48 set in the Winnipeg South Centre by-election of June 19, 2023, before itself being broken by 7 names during the 2024 LaSalle—Émard—Verdun federal by-election, also attributed to the LBC. The current record is held by the 214 names on the ballot of the 2025 Battle River—Crowfoot federal by-election, with 201 of them being from the LBC. The resulting ballot papers were long, requiring temporary changes to the Elections Act due to their unprecedented size. One candidate, Félix-Antoine Hamel, did not receive any votes, and is believed to be the first candidate to receive zero votes in a federal election in Canadian history. He could not vote for himself, as he did not live in the riding.

Opinion polls No public opinion polls were released before election day. The day after the election, Mainstreet Research released a poll they conducted during the writ period. They did not release the poll during the writ period due to a lack of confidence in the sample.

+ Evolution of voting intentions at riding level Polling firmLast day of survey Source CPC LPC NDP GPC PPC Other Undecided SampleBy-election 2024June 24, 202442.1140.4011.022.860.642.97——MainstreetJune 202441391142211Election 2021September 20, 202125.30 49.2216.835.992.67———

Results

2021 result

See also By-elections to the 44th Canadian Parliament

References