Conservative wins in two by-elections show Poilievre’s efforts to win back PPC voters may be working

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Sometime late Monday evening, Pierre Poilievre must have sighed with relief.

Unhappy Mennonites had threatened to undermine confidence in the federal Conservative Leader in not one but two ridings where by-elections were held that night.

In the end, the Conservatives easily held both seats, dealing a serious blow to People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier.

In ridings that are traditionally Conservative, at least, Mr. Poilievre’s hold on voters is secure.

Four ridings were up for grabs Monday. Two of them were sure things for the Liberals.

In Winnipeg South Centre, Liberal candidate Ben Carr won the riding previously held by his late father, Jim. And in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount, Liberal Anna Gainey took just over 50 per cent of the vote in the riding formerly held by astronaut and later cabinet minister Marc Garneau.

Green Party Co-Leader Jonathan Pedneault, who was hoping against hope to win the seat and enter Parliament, earned only 13-per-cent support.

The drama, if there was going to be any, centred on Oxford, in Southwestern Ontario, and on Portage-Lisgar, in rural Manitoba, two traditionally safe Conservative seats that seemed to be in play.

Oxford has been Conservative since the 1950s, apart from the years when the Reform and Progressive Conservative parties split the vote, giving it to the Liberals.

But the fight for the nomination was bitter. Arpan Khanna, a lawyer and party organizer, won the nomination even though retiring MP Dave MacKenzie wanted it for his daughter, Deborah Tait. When she lost to Mr. Khanna, Mr. MacKenzie was so incensed he campaigned for the Liberal candidate.

But that wasn’t what had Mr. Poilievre’s advisers worried. Oxford has a substantial population of Mennonites, who were angered when the party’s national candidate selection committee disqualified Gerrit Van Dorland from the nomination. RightNow, an anti-abortion group, maintains Mr. Van Dorland was rejected because he opposes abortion, and they are probably right. (Conservatives get it from both sides on the abortion question.)

Social conservatives in the riding did not appreciate having one of their own disqualified in favour of someone parachuted in by the party elites. Conservatives campaigning for Mr. Khanna were hearing anger at the door.

That anger wasn’t sufficient to produce an upset, though. On by-election night, Mr. Khanna held on with 43 per cent of the vote, down from the 47 per cent Mr. MacKenzie had received in the 2021 general election, but more than enough to hold off the Liberals.

It’s worth noting that, as of Tuesday morning, with only one poll left to report, the Christian Heritage Party, at a little more than 4 per cent of the vote, was outpolling both the People’s Party and the Greens.

Mennonites were also a factor in Portage-Lisgar, also usually safe Conservative territory. Former interim party leader Candice Bergen took 52.5 per cent of the vote in 2021. But the People’s Party candidate won 21.6 per cent, the party’s best showing in that election.

Twelve per cent of the voters in the riding speak German. Discontent with mask and vaccine mandates and restrictions on church services during the pandemic angered Mennonites and other socially conservative voters. Mr. Bernier parachuted himself into the riding, hoping to win it or at least improve on the PPC vote share.

It was an ugly race, filled with dark mutterings about the World Economic Forum and other conspiracy theories. One attack flyer featured a photo of Mr. Bernier, who has taken to speaking out against the rights of trans people, wearing a Pride T-shirt.

In the end, Conservative candidate Branden Leslie took an impressive 65 per cent of the vote, while “Max Bernier,” as the PPC Leader from Quebec billed himself on the ballot, took only 17 per cent.

Mr. Poilievre’s efforts to win back PPC voters with a more robust, not to say strident, conservative message, may be working.

None of this matters, of course, in the huge suburban ridings surrounding Toronto and Vancouver populated by middle-class, car-commuting voters, where elections are won and lost.

Such as the Greater Toronto Area riding of Durham, where former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole has resigned his seat. There will have to be a by-election there soon.