December 11, 2022
Pierre Poilievre has been an MP since 2004 but has been Leader of the Conservative Party for under 100 days and is already being faced with a byelection. Instead of campaigning with the party leader and candidate as the Liberals have done Poilievre is touring New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Has he already conceded?
Pierre Poilievre was elected leader of the Conservative Party on September 10. The Mississauga-Lakeshore byelection was called on November 6 and candidates have signed up and started their campaigns.
Liberals
The Liberals nominated Charles Sousa as their candidate. He was the MPP for Mississauga South (now Mississauga-Lakeshore) from 2007-2018. As an MPP in the McGuinty Government, he served as Minister of Labour and then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. In Wynne's Government, he served as Minister of Finance. He lost reelection in the 2018 provincial election in Mississauga-Lakeshore by over 7 points. He's been favoured to win in pretty much every projection.
Conservatives
The Conservatives nominated Ron Chhinzer a police officer for the Peel Regional Police with over 20 years of experience in law enforcement. He has been ignored by Pierre and left on his own to run which has proved very grave for his chances of winning. The wording from the Conservative Party in this race has often been mostly anti-Trudeau and Chhinzer has embraced the anti-Trudeau vote.
NDP
The NDP nominated Julia Kole. The NDP hasn't covered who she is very well going as detailed as calling her a resident of Mississauga that loves the city. The NDP's recent national shift toward the focus on economic issues has certainly helped increase her support as a result and is expected to be one of the only candidates almost ensured they will go up in vote share.
Greens
The Greens nominated Mary Kidnew a community advocate with many groups. With Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault bringing the Green Party back from the dead their polls have been boosted back to pre-Annamie Paul levels and are expected to do much better this time than the last election where they got 2.3% (half of their support in 2019). The Greens' recent increase in support in Ontario with Mike Morrice in Kitchener Centre has allowed Mary Kidnew to do very well, potentially making a new record for support in the riding or being close to their current 2008 record (7.3%). The Green leaders and some leadership candidates have been canvassing with Kidnew likely in a move to show that the party is united. An issue they've been having trouble with as a result of the 2020 Leadership Race.
PPC
The PPC nominated Khaled Al-Sudani an IT professional. There isn't much information on who he is and was nominated much later than other major party candidates. The PPC has been collapsing in support in favour of Pierre Poilievre and the PPC is expected to lose roughly half their vote share in 2021 (4.2%).
Longest Ballot Committee
The Longest Ballot Committee has nominated around 30 other candidates to bring the issue of electoral reform more public as a result of Trudeau's promising of electoral reform and then bailing on the issue. The group targeted the riding of Saint Boniface-Saint Vital in the last election with around 15 candidates. There's no way of knowing definitively who is a fully independent candidate or linked with this group so numbers are estimated. In Saint Boniface-Saint Vital, Independents and the Rhino Party got a little under 1% so with over double the number of candidates I've projected them to get roughly 2% which many others who are making projections aren't taking as much into consideration. As a result of the massive amount of candidates from this group the largest election ballots in Canada have been printed and it's the first ballot in Canadian history to have 2 sides.
The Prediction
Canada Polling projects a Liberal hold in the riding considering its general lean towards Liberals in its history and the recent right-wing turn from the Mississauga-Lakeshore Conservatives. This election is extremely significant as it is going to see whether or not Pierre will be able to crack into GTA voters. Something key that anyone needing to form a government will have to do. If Pierre fails in one of the closest GTA ridings already his election chances are very grave.
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