Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called a byelection for the federal riding of Toronto-St. Paul’s on June 24.
The byelection is needed after former cabinet minister Carolyn Bennett announced last year that she would not run for re-election after more than 26 years representing the riding. She served under three prime ministers and spent a decade in cabinet, more than half that as the Crown-Indigenous relations minister between 2015 and 2021. Bennett was shuffled out of cabinet this past summer following her announcement that she would not seek re-election and was named Canada’s next ambassador to Denmark in January.
Longtime Liberal staffer Leslie Church, who most recently served as chief of staff to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, has been nominated to run for the party in Bennett’s riding.
The Conservative Party of Canada has nominated financial professional Don Stewart, while Amrit Parhar, who works as a director at a non-profit, will run for the NDP.
Toronto-St. Paul’s has become a safe Liberal seat since Bennett first ran there, winning with more than half the vote in all but two of the nine elections she ran contested. However, the results this time around are expected to be a bellwether of the Liberal’s fortunes in the upcoming general election expected sometime next year.
Advance voting in the riding will take place Friday, June 14 through Monday, June 17.
Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report