TORONTO – Politics being what they are in Canada, the slightest perception of “faltering” is inflated to demonize and aggrandize the nature of the weakness: a sniffle becomes full-blown pneumonia. Alas, the phenomenon is not exclusive to Canada.

The year 2024 will surely go down in history as an electoral year in which the “mighty” meet their just desserts, at least as their political enemies see it.

President Macron in France, Prime Minister Sunak in Britain and Chancellor Scholz in Germany are expecting a drubbing in elections to the Lower House. Prime Minister Modi in India just emerged from an election which witnessed a diminution of his electoral appeal, and Lord only knows what mess will emerge from the USA elections later this year.

People without corporate memory rely on the speculative communications industry “to make sense of things” in Toronto St. Paul’s, now that the riding has changed hands. It would be too easy to “pile on”, but to what useful purpose?

We will all become more familiar with the now MP, Don Stewart. Leslie Church, the Liberal candidate, may reoffer in the general election or surface somewhere in the Consultancy industry. Without intending any disrespect to the democratic process, the other 2,850 “non-contender candidates” will fall back into oblivion. Toronto St. Paul is a two-Party constituency; all other candidates in the race reflect varying shades of peripheral impact.

The most analogous circumstances took place in1982 when Pierre Trudeau, then scraping the sludge covering the bottom of the tank into which his popularity had sunk, decided to appoint MP for Trinity-Spadina, a safe seat, to the Senate so that Jim Coutts, Trudeau’s Principal Secretary might replace him and “rejuvenate the Liberal brand”.

It was not to be; the riding stayed NDP until 1993. The Portuguese and Italian residents remained loyal to the Liberals for reasons to be elaborated in other articles. Those communities do not appear to have followed the same pattern on Monday in Toronto St. Paul’s. The Jewish community, also a traditional associate of the Party also seems to have made a different choice, for reasons related to Canada’s position on Middle East issues and Israel.

Only time will tell whether they will “return to the fold”. For now, it is improbable that they will do so in time for the next election.

In the pics below, Don Stewart and Leslie Church (from their Twitter-X profiles)