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Carney Is Coming for More of Poilievre’s Turf

The December 7 by-elections could show how much ground Conservatives have lost

On Monday, December 7, six federal by-elections will be held across the country: three in Quebec, two in Ontario, and one in Saskatchewan. You have to go back to May 2002 to find that many by-elections held on the same day.

This set of six elections should offer us a rare opportunity to gauge the pulse of the Canadian electorate, as Mark Carney’s Liberals have passed the first third of their term.

But the Liberals won’t be the only ones tested that evening. Each of the four major federal parties will have something to defend and could suffer setbacks that might leave a lasting mark for the remainder of this parliamentary session.

There are several ways to analyze these six elections, including examining them riding by riding. Instead, let’s proceed party by party, starting with the smallest caucus in the House of Commons.

The New Democratic Party is fighting to stay on the map in Quebec. Alexandre Boulerice’s departure leaves the NDP defending Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie (RLPP), its last seat in the province and the final holdout from Jack Layton’s 2011 “orange wave.” In April 2025, Boulerice held the riding by 9.4 percentage points over his Liberal rival, a considerably narrower margin than in previous elections.

With the federal NDP posting its worst national result in more than half a century, Boulerice’s survival owed much to his personal popularity. His successor will have to earn that support all over again.

Enter Pierre Céré, who spent more than forty years defending unemployed workers and has deep roots in Quebec’s community and labour movements. Boulerice also encouraged him to run—a useful endorsement of his credibility. Céré’s task is to turn it all into votes.

In neighbouring Laurier—Sainte-Marie (LSM), epidemiologist Nimâ Machouf is making her fourth attempt to win the seat for the NDP. She finished second in 2025, taking 19 percent of the vote against former Liberal member of Parliament Steven Guilbeault’s 52 percent. His departure in August gives her another opening, though she has considerable ground to recover.

Together, RLPP and LSM are the only two ridings where the NDP could potentially achieve respectable results on the evening of December 7. For a party fighting to rebuild, simply holding RLPP would count as a victory and prevent Avi Lewis from losing his last foothold east of Winnipeg.

Next up, the Bloc. From 1997 to 2011, Gilles Duceppe and Bernard Bigras........

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