Pressure mounts on Prime Minister Trudeau to resign after his party loses crucial Montreal election – India TV

Canada’s ruling Liberal Party has lost a once-safe seat in a Montreal parliamentary district, preliminary results showed Tuesday, a result likely to increase pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign. Elections Canada said Liberal candidate Laura Palestini was pushed into second place by separatist Bloc Quebecois candidate Louis-Philippe Sauve after 100 percent of the vote was counted in LaSalle-Emard-Verdun.

Palestini received 27.2 percent of the vote, while the Bloc received 28 percent and the New Democratic Party candidate received 26.1 percent. The election was held to replace a liberal MP who had resigned.

The outcome will put even more focus on the political future of Trudeau, who has become increasingly unpopular after nearly nine years in office. Trudeau insists he will lead the party into an election that must be held by the end of October 2025, but some Liberal MPs have broken ranks and are calling for a change at the top.

Alexandra Mendes, a Liberal MP who represents a Quebec constituency, said last week that many of her constituents wanted Trudeau to resign.

In the 2021 general election, the Liberals won the Montreal seat with 43 percent of the vote, ahead of the Bloc Quebecois with 22 percent and the NDP with 19 percent. Trudeau had suggested voters might respond to anger over rising prices and a housing crisis.

What does the latest poll suggest?

Polls suggest the Liberals will suffer a significant defeat in the next federal election to Pierre Poilievre’s right-wing Conservatives. A Leger poll last week put the Conservatives at 45 percent of public support, a level of national support rarely seen in Canada. The Liberals would come in second at 25 percent.

Trudeau’s popularity has plummeted as voters grapple with rising living costs and a housing crisis exacerbated in part by a sharp increase in the number of temporary residents, including foreign students and workers.

Poilievre is pledging to repeal a federal carbon tax that he says makes life unaffordable, and last week pledged to limit immigration until more housing could be built. Liberals acknowledge that the polls look bleak but say they will redouble their efforts to portray Poilievre as a supporter of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement in the run-up to the election.

Poilievre, a sharp-tongued career politician who often insults his opponents, also announced he would defund Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC. In April, he was thrown out of the House of Commons after calling Trudeau a “nutcase.”

(With contributions from the agency)

READ ALSO: Canada: Opposition leader: Motion of no confidence against Trudeau’s government imminent