Election Results in Three Federal By-Elections,
April 13, 2026

By-Election in Terrebonne

Liberal Party of Canada candidate Tatiana Auguste was elected with a margin of 731 votes. Auguste received 22,445 votes compared to 21,714 for Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné.

Voter turnout was 50.76 per cent, with 46,369 voters casting ballots out of 91,344 registered voters. Auguste was elected with 24.57 per cent of votes from registered voters. Of those who voted, Auguste received 55.6 per cent of the votes cast.

Liberal: 22,445
Bloc Québécois: 21,714
Conservative: 1,151
NDP: 249
Green Party: 191
People's Party (PPC): 105
Rhinoceros Party: 61
Independents (42 candidates from the Longest Ballot Project): 53

Voter turnout: 46,369 out of 91,344 registered voters – 50.76 per cent

Scarborough Southwest By-Election

Liberal candidate Doly Begum was elected with 20,114 votes to 5,300 for Conservative candidate Diana Filipova, a difference of 14,814 votes for the Liberal.

Voter turnout was 33.54 per cent with 22,778 voters casting their ballots out of 85,796 registered voters. The candidate was elected with 23.4 per cent of votes from registered voters. Of those who voted, the candidate received 83.3 per cent of the votes cast.

Liberal: 20,114
Conservative: 5,300
NDP: 1,714
Green Party: 711
Independent: 432
People's Party (PPC): 265
Christian Heritage Party: 142
Centrist: 100

Turnout: 22,778 out of 85,796 registered voters – 33.54 per cent

University–Rosedale By-Election

Liberal candidate Danielle Martin was elected with 19,961 votes to NDP candidate Serena Purdy's 5,869, a difference of 14,909 votes for the Liberal candidate.

Voter turnout was 32.99 per cent with 31,000 voters casting their ballots out of 93,971 registered voters. The candidate was elected with 21.24 per cent of votes from registered voters. Of those who voted, the candidate received 64.39 per cent of the votes cast.

Liberal: 19,961
NDP: 5,869
Conservative: 3,843
Green Party: 896
People's Party (PPC): 295
Centrist: 66
Canadian Future Party: 56
Independent: 46
Independent: 36
No party affiliation: 22

Voter turnout: 31,000 out of 93,971 registered voters – 32.99 per cent

Christine Fréchette Becomes New De Facto
Premier of Quebec

– Christine Dandenault –

On Sunday, April 12, Quebec's ruling party the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), held its leadership convention in Drummondville, Quebec. There, 58 per cent of CAQ members who voted chose Christine Fréchette to be the new leader of their party, who de facto becomes Premier of Quebec. This works out to 0.14 per cent of registered Quebec voters who chose the new Premier of Quebec. (In total 20,524 members of CAQ were eligible to vote and voter turnout was 77.1 per cent. As of March 31, 2025, Quebec had 6,411,904 eligible voters, according to Elections Quebec.)

On the same day Fréchette was chosen as the new leader of the CAQ, more than 1,000 people demonstrated in front of the Times Hotel, where the convention was being held. They denounced the CAQ government and its anti-social restructuring of the state to serve wealthy private interests. Workers from many sectors of the economy in action against the anti-social nation-wrecking agenda were represented, including by members of the "Community of Workers at the End of Their Rope" movement, all of whom demanded the fulfillment of their claims on society.

Following her appointment, Fréchette made a speech which gave a good indication of the fraudulent government she will head."This is the beginning of a new era," she said, which everyone is clear is solely for purposes of distancing herself from the highly unpopular François Legault whose ratings were so low he was prompted to resign as premier. The CAQ's anti-social restructuring of the state and nation-wrecking warmongering agenda will continue because that is what the narrow private interests which have usurped the state power want. Fréchette is already well-known for her pro-war stance on Quebec's economy, having removed the obstacles that allowed Investissement Québec to invest in the military industry. She will have $250 million reserved just for her in the Quebec 2026-2027 budget to conduct her election campaign for the Quebec general elections of October 2026.

To officially become premier, she will take the oath of office as Premier of Quebec before the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, the King's representative, pledging loyalty to her sovereign under the guise that she serves the people of Quebec. "I, [name], do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will faithfully execute the powers and responsibilities entrusted to me as Premier of Quebec, and that I will fulfill my duties with loyalty, honesty, and devotion to the people of Quebec." She already swore an oath of allegiance to a foreign king, Charles III, in October 2022, to take her seat in the National Assembly. That oath states, "I solemnly and sincerely swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and loyal to the King (Charles III), his heirs and successors, and that I will fulfill my duties as a Member of the National Assembly with honour, in accordance with the laws of Quebec and Canada."

When Legault resigned in December 2025 due to massive opposition from the people of Quebec to his government, he claimed he was resigning because he had failed to convince them of his good governance, a fact confirmed by opinion polls. Far from responding to the people's demands or even acknowledging the overwhelming rejection of his platform, he downplayed the problem as simply needing to make way for his successor. Since then, the CAQ government has intensified the adoption of anti-worker, anti-people nation-wrecking legislation. Quebec is engaged in militarizing the economy and providing natural resources for the U.S. war machine, while cutbacks and the privatization of health care and social programs are unsustainable and intolerable. People are in action against them from one end of Quebec to the other.

The scale of the public protest and outrage in Quebec is deeply shaking the ruling class. It has been clearly warned that the working class and people categorically oppose the actions of the CAQ government and the cartel parties in the National Assembly. The only response of these other parties to the totalitarian rule of the CAQ is moral outrage and reducing the need to renew the political process and empower the people to launching personal attacks against one another. Meanwhile, their allegiance to the neo-liberal democracy remains steadfast. The people oppose the laws passed, the restructuring of the state that places narrow private interests at the heart of the decision-making process, the anti-worker measures, the state's manoeuvres to divide the people in the name of gender equality, national unity, and reconciliation, the bogus "Law of Laws" called a Constitution, the cartel parties' claim to exercise parliamentary sovereignty and much more.

For the working class and the people of Quebec, there is no question of giving free rein to this new government that will pursue the same agenda of paying the rich. As the creators of social wealth, they demand a say in how it is used and insist that it be used to meet the needs of the population, not to enrich a tiny minority. This aspiration is entirely absent from the official speeches and positions surrounding the new leader of the CAQ and incoming premier.

There is no question of waiting to see if the premier will "listen," that "she must be given a chance," or of entertaining claims by the other parties in the National Assembly that they will "listen" to us better. All they do is promote a flawed system of governance that fails to solve any problem whatsoever for the benefit of the people and that, law after law, decree after decree, gag order after gag order, increasingly entrenches the exclusion of the people from all decision-making. Through their resistance, the working class and people are showing they have an agenda of their own which is pro-social as it upholds the dignity of labour and defends the natural and social environment. They have no illusions that this system of so-called representative democracy will provide solutions when it is the source of the people disempowerment.