MONTREAL – The Liberals may be widely expected to walk away from Monday’s three byelections with a clear majority, but the pressure is still on for them to fight for the hotly contested Terrebonne riding.
Sunday marked the final day of campaigning before the parties rev up their get-out-the-vote efforts, and party organizers say it’s all hands on deck.
The Liberals have been pulling out all the stops to hold onto the Montreal suburb in Quebec after winning it by a single vote last year, then seeing that result nullified by the courts.
Political analyst Philippe Fournier of the polling aggregator site 338Canada said holding onto the riding would give the governing party a boost and show they still have momentum after the last election.
But if Carney’s Liberals lose Terrebonne to the Bloc Québécois, that would send a signal that they are “not so invincible” and the Bloc could be starting to rebound.
“We’re six months away from a Quebec election, and in Terrebonne, the provincial MNA is Parti Québécois,” Fournier said. “So, I think the Liberals would really like to keep this one to show that they’re still competitive in key areas.”
A steady stream of cabinet ministers and Quebec MPs swept through the riding over the campaign to support local candidate Tatiana Auguste.
Prime Minister Mark Carney swung by the riding on Thursday while he was in town for his party’s convention, where some 4,500 members gathered at an event centre about a half-hour’s drive from the off-island suburb.
Health Minister Marjorie Michel, a longtime party organizer in Quebec and friend of Auguste, said the party has collectively set its sights on the riding.
Volunteer support has poured in from Laval and Montreal neighbourhoods and ridings as far away as New Brunswick as party members took days off from work to go knock doors in the longtime Bloc stronghold.
“I will leave this campaign knowing that we did it all hoping to win,” Michel said. “It’s a tight race but we can win.”
The surprise floor crossing of Ontario MP Marilyn Gladu from the Conservatives to the Liberals a few days ago removed some of the drama from the Terrebonne race, since it’s no longer the make-or-break contest for Carney to get a working majority.
The local Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné suggested the Liberals may have shot themselves in the foot.
All the floor crossers who joined the Liberals in recent months have shifted the local ballot-box question, she said, since the Liberals are now on track for a majority no matter what happens in her riding.
“It’s not a question of the majority now,” she said. “The question is rather, who would you actually want as your representative in Ottawa?”
Sinclair-Desgagné said her team has also fought hard to win back the riding, and she’s unbothered by the cabinet ministers parachuting in to help.
“Quebec has seen other cases (like this),” she said.
“We had the love-in in 1995, just before the referendum. That’s the comment that I hear when I see a Liberal minister coming in for the first time, doesn’t know anything about Terrebonne … makes a little speech, says ‘Yay, go Canada’ — and people are just like, you know nothing about us.”
Quebec Liberal MP Nathalie Provost and her team went door-knocking and made phone calls in the riding, and said she’s noticed from that experience the demographics in some areas once known for strong Quebec nationalist support are changing in their favour.
“The social fabric of these counties has changed, and we see it when we do door-to-door,” she said in French.
Prior to last year, the Liberals had not held the seat since the 1980s.
Fournier noted that once he secures a thin majority, Carney will need to carefully manage his caucus.
“You have to think that many of (his MPs) would get difficult at some point, right? It’s not easy to whip everybody into place — nobody can get sick, nobody can get difficult, nobody can get needy,” he said. “Mr. Carney’s job for the next few months not only is to assemble his majority, but to keep it intact, to keep his MPs happy.”
The Liberals are widely expected to retain Scarborough Southwest and University—Rosedale on Monday, both considered to be safe strongholds for the party.
Family physician Danielle Martin is vying to take back Chrystia Freeland’s seat for the Liberals after she vacated it for a new career overseas.
Former NDP MPP Doly Begum is aiming to replace Bill Blair in the House after he left on a diplomatic appointment to the U.K.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2026.
— With files from Vicky Fragasso-Marquis
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