Montreal byelection: Liberals say loss a ‘dry run’ for general election

Liberal campaign co-chair Soraya Martinez Ferrada says her party’s Montreal byelection loss — in a riding that has historically been a party stronghold — is a “dry run” for the next general election.

In an interview with CTV’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos Tuesday night, Ferrada says the results in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun are a “way for us to learn.”

“We have to make sure that we are taking a lot of things from this byelection and preparing because it was a good dry run for us in terms of how we prepare for a general election,” she told Kapelos.

The Bloc Québécois’ Louis-Philippe Sauvé clinched Monday night’s byelection with 28 per cent of the vote. Liberal candidate Laura Palestini, meanwhile, came in second with 27.2 per cent, followed by NDP candidate Craig Sauvé who secured 26.1 per cent of the vote.

In the last two federal elections, former Liberal justice minister David Lametti won that riding, with approximately 44 and 43 per cent of vote share in 2019 and 2021 respectively. 

Monday night’s loss is the Liberal party’s second strong-hold upset in recent months following the Toronto-St. Paul’s byelection in June. However, Ferrada sees this loss differently.

“When you talk to me about a stronghold, that’s the media spin,” she says. “We’re talking about a byelection where, for now, not even 40 per cent of people have participated in.”

She adds that for Montreal’s byelection, the Liberal party had nearly 500 volunteers on the ground campaigning. “People don’t have phone lines anymore. [Campaigning] at the doors is different. It takes more time, takes more people,” she says. “One thing that we saw in this election that I can be very proud of is that our party is healthy.”

You can watch CTV Power Play’s full interview with Minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada at the top of this article.

With files from CTV National News Correspondent Rachel Aiello