The downtown riding of Toronto-St. Paul’s has been a safe Liberal seat for more than three decades, with the Conservatives coming in second and the NDP usually a distant third. Nonetheless, the New Democrat vote will bear close watching in a by-election there that must be called now that incumbent MP Carolyn Bennett has retired.
The results in Toronto-St. Paul’s could tell us much about the political future of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and Jagmeet Singh’s NDP. It could even signal whether there is any realistic prospect of the New Democrats one day overtaking the Liberals as the dominant progressive party.
