Byelection blues for Liberals amid third leadership race since 2018

As Thursday’s byelections showed — with the Tories holding two seats and the NDP one — breaking through is going to take more than the Liberals have been offering.

“It was a maximum effort,” interim Liberal leader John Fraser said after the party fell short in its best chance of the three, in Scarborough Southwest, which was won by NDP tenant activist Fatima Shaban.   

“We didn’t make the gains we wanted.” 

Buoyed by her party’s crucial victory, Stiles rubbed it in. 

“People are starting to see that the Liberals cannot deliver on the promises they make that they’re going to defeat the Conservatives,” she told reporters Friday at Queen’s Park. 

Some Liberals say their odds won’t improve until the party — in the midst of its third leadership race since 2018 — picks a new full-time boss on Nov. 21 to lay out a vision for Ontario. 

“Ford gets through to voters, and Marit to a lesser extent. Leaders matter because they define the party,” veteran Liberal strategist Marcel Wieder told the Star in an interview Friday.

“When people were voting in Hamilton East—Stoney Creek and York—Simcoe, they were voting for the Doug Ford party,” he added, referring to the byelections to replace former cabinet ministers Neil Lumsden and Caroline Mulroney.

And then there’s luck. 

The latest trade flare-up with the United States, and Ford famously telling U.S. President Donald Trump to “kiss my ass,” was a boost for the Progressive Conservatives, who cruised to a third majority government last year on a Trump-fighting agenda.

“Honestly, this premier has horseshoes up his ass,” said a former Liberal cabinet minister, who spoke on the condition they not be identified, while noting that “a party without a leader makes it a lot harder to make the case for change.”

But with the Liberals improving to second place in Scarborough Southwest, compared to third place in the February 2025 provincial election, and improving their vote tally in York—Simcoe, the party will get more money from per-vote subsidies into its coffers.

“We built something here, and just because we didn’t win doesn’t mean the thing we built is going to disintegrate,” Fraser said at the election night gathering for Scarborough Southwest candidate Ahsanul Hafiz, who owns 30 Domino’s Pizza franchises.

The challenge now is to channel that momentum into a leadership race that will be competing for attention with the trade war, municipal elections across Ontario on Oct. 26 and U.S. midterm elections in November. 

Both Fraser and Hafiz downplayed the lack of involvement in the Scarborough Southwest campaign from former New Democrat MPP Doly Begum, who defected in February to become Prime Minister Mark Carney’s hand-picked candidate for a federal byelection in the riding. She won by a huge margin. 

“That’s very tough to say,” Hafiz told reporters when asked if he felt Begum could have helped push him over the top.

But some Liberals confided privately they felt let down. 

“There are some people who are disappointed,” said one. “Me, it’s like, if you want to come out and canvass, come out. If you don’t, I’m moving on.”

It was clear from when Begum resigned that the NDP was gunning to hold Scarborough Southwest. Stiles repeatedly boasted it was the party’s ground game that made Begum a three-term MPP.

That team of volunteers came through for Shaban, who revealed she ran her last two federal NDP campaigns — including April’s byelection against Begum where she garnered just six per cent of the vote — “out of my own living room.”

“To be honest, I think a lot of people doubted us,” said Shaban. “Was this really an NDP seat? I think today we have proven flat out that this is an NDP seat in its own right.”

Speaking confidentially to share party considerations, a long-time NDP insider said the win was good “for Marit’s leadership.”

“But you don’t build a government-in-waiting by only holding the ground that you already had … and losing in Hamilton East—Stoney Creek should keep the leaders up at night.” 

The NDP candidate there was former Hamilton Mountain MPP Monique Taylor. 

Stiles’s interim chief of staff Charlie Mancini said the party will move forward with a focus on replicating the Scarborough Southwest win in other ridings.

“We’re going to continue to connect with voters and connect with Ontarians on that very personal level,” he said.

Stiles said the NDP will hold a caucus retreat in Peterborough in October, calling it a bellwether area that generally votes for the winning party in elections. She contrasted her party’s seats with those of the Liberals, which are in the GTA and Ottawa. 

“We have rural MPPs, we have urban MPPs, we have MPPs in every region.”