The four byelections on Monday turned out to be a wash between the Conservatives and the Liberals, with the NDP having to settle for moral victories.
The Conservatives and Liberals each retained two seats they already held, while the NDP made respectable showings in Montreal-Bourassa and Toronto Centre.
It doesn鈥檛 matter that the Conservatives held on to Brandon-Souris in Manitoba by only 1.4 points. People only remember who won. And Conservative Larry Maguire narrowly defeated Liberal challenger Rolf Dinsdale by 400 votes, 44.1 to 42.7 per cent.
Similarly, in Toronto Centre, Liberal Chrystia Freeland prevailed by 49 to 36 per cent over the NDP鈥檚 Linda McQuaig. Both were star candidates, journalists and authors, and it was a pity only one of them could win. Freeland represented the stronger brand in a riding the Liberals have held since 1993. McQuaig was the better candidate, and the NDP will take comfort from her improving their score by six points over the 2011 election. The riding will be carved up in redistribution in 2015, and the new seat might be winnable for her then.
In Bourassa, it was no surprise that Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg held off the NDP鈥檚 Stephane Moraille by 17 points, 48 to 31 per cent. Again, he benefited from Liberal brand equity in the North End Montreal riding.
Bourassa is Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre鈥檚 old riding, and his machine would have been there to deliver the seat for the Liberals. But again, the NDP can take comfort from finishing a solid second in a seat that even Jack Layton, riding the Orange Wave in 2011, couldn鈥檛 break through.
The most important point in Bourassa is that the Bloc Qu茅b茅cois, at only 13 per cent, was out of the game. And the Conservatives, at four per cent, were never in it.
Looking ahead to 2015, this suggests that the Montreal region will be competitive between the Liberals and the NDP. The Bloc are finished as a competitive force in Quebec. And the Conservatives, already reduced to five seats in the area code 418 region around Quebec City, will do well to hold on to them.
As for Provencher, the other Manitoba seat, Conservative Ted Falks won by nearly 30 points.
So the Conservatives won two seats in southern Manitoba that were partly urban but largely rural. And the Liberals won two city seats in traditional strongholds of Montreal and Toronto.
What Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau can both be grateful for is what might have happened, but didn鈥檛. In Brandon-Souris, the Conservatives had a messy nomination process, with Maguire essentially imposed on the riding association by party central. The Liberal candidate, Rolf Dinsdale, had name recognition as the son of longtime Conservative MP Walter Dinsdale.
And then there was the Senate expenses scandal, the Wright-Duffy affair and an RCMP affidavit suggesting fraud, bribery and breach of trust charges were being considered.
Knowing they were in trouble, the Conservatives sent in some top people from the national campaign team, made a heavy media buy and put out an open letter to Brandon-Souris voters from Harper, telling them why they had to vote Conservative.
Then they had Harper campaigning there without going there last Friday. He was in Winnipeg, cutting a ribbon for a new expressway. But it鈥檚 the same media market. He reached the target audience without running the risk of going to a riding he might lose.
Had the Conservatives lost Brandon-Souris, the growing unease in the Conservative caucus would have become growing unrest. In the event, any incipient caucus revolt will have to await further developments on the PMO鈥檚 involvement in the Wright-Duffy affair. A win is a win.
As for Trudeau, he should feel relieved that Toronto Centre turned out to be a double-digit win. Had McQuaig somehow pulled an upset, she would have defeated Trudeau鈥檚 hand-picked candidate. Trudeau himself was heavily invested in Toronto Centre, making seven trips to the riding, including all of last weekend.
Though Trudeau has been underwhelming in the House, his strengths are the hustings, and the byelection campaign played to that.
And in a way, he might be benefiting from Tom Mulcair鈥檚 dominant performance in question period over the Senate scandal. As one of Trudeau鈥檚 advisers recently put it about Mulcair: 鈥淗e鈥檚 killing Harper, but that makes him a killer.鈥�
L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy magazine.
