The next round of federal byelections could provide much more interesting races than what we saw earlier this month, potentially offering an opportunity for the Liberals to grow their slim majority in the House of Commons or a needed victory for the opposition parties.

NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice announced earlier this week he would resign his Montreal seat to run in the Quebec provincial election in the fall.

While Boulerice has held the seat since 2011, many pundits are speculating a hobbled NDP will have a difficult path ahead in retaining Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie in a byelection, with the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois expected to put forward strong runs.

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The Liberals haven’t won the riding in recent decades but are polling in the high 40s in Quebec. Prior to Boulerice’s win in 2011, the Bloc Quebecois had held the seat.

Karl Bélanger, a former NDP strategist and president of Traxxion Stratégies, said there’s “no question” that Boulerice’s departure is a “major blow” for the NDP, but stressed the party could still win the riding in a byelection.

“Retaining the seat will be a difficult but not impossible task for the party,” he told iPolitics.

“Municipally, the area has been voting for the leftist Projet Montréal and provincially, Quebec Solidaire has been the voters’ choice. So it is quite possible for Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie’s left-leaning voters to keep that trend going federally, as they have been doing with Boulerice for quite some time now.”

All of this depends on the NDP finding a “big name, a star candidate that can capture the imagination of voters in the riding,” Belanger said, describing this person as “someone that can be seen as a credible voice in Ottawa despite the party’s current situation.

“Failing that, the NDP’s beachhead in Quebec will disappear and it will be much more difficult to recapture in a general election.”

As for who’s the favourite in the race, Belanger said it’s either the Liberals — who finished second in the last two elections — or the Bloc, who the previous runner-up.

He said both parties will “hope that they can scoop up the NDP vote,” with the Bloc, in particular, set to do “everything it can to make sure the NDP doesn’t win, even if they don’t actually win themselves.”

“Because if there is to be any kind of resurgence of the New Democrats in Quebec, it would be at the expense of the Bloc.”

Moving west, Vancouver Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson announced today that he had accepted an appointment to serve as Canada’s next ambassador to the European Union. Like Boulerice, the exact timing of his resignation from the House remains unclear, though are expected to happen during the upcoming summer recess.

Wilkinson was first elected to the House in 2015, comfortably winning the riding then known as North Vancouver with nearly 57 per cent of the vote.

He won re-election with narrower margins in 2019 and 2021, but his vote share surged to nearly 60 per cent in last April’s election.

Despite the recent Liberal dominance, the riding was previously held by Conservative Andrew Saxton from 2008 to 2015.

Capturing the largely affluent City of North Vancouver, it’s expected the Conservatives would emerge as the Liberals’ top foe in a byelection in the riding.

The NDP has never finished higher than third since its inception in 1988.

Finally, there’s the question of Beaches-East York, currently represented by Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who said he’s planning on leaving federal politics to run for the leadership of the Ontario Liberals.

He’s currently running for the nomination of the provincial party in the yet-to-be called byelection in Scarborough Southwest. That riding was held by New Democrat Doly Begum until she resigned earlier this year to successfully run for the Liberals in the federal Scarborough Southwest byelection.

Erskine-Smith said he’ll resign his federal seat once Ontario Premier Doug Ford calls the provincial byelection.

It’s tough to gauge if the race in Beaches-East York will be competitive.

A Mainstreet Research poll in February found that NDP Leader Avi Lewis would have a good shot at winning the seat, but Lewis has ruled out making a run.

David Valentin, principal at pollster Liaison Strategies, said he doesn’t understand Lewis’ thinking in declining to run in Beaches-East York as the riding is one of the best pickup opportunities for the party in Ontario.

“It seems foolish not to try,” he told iPolitics, saying only nearby Parkdale-High Park — whose Liberal MP has offered no signals they’ll be resigning — would be a better landing spot for Lewis.

Valentin said Lewis’ refusal would make sense if the party had a star candidate lined up, but it’s unclear if that’s the case or who that person would be.

He said winning Beaches-East York would give Lewis’ NDP “a beachhead to launch an election from” and allow him to focus solely on the national race during the next campaign.

Even if Lewis’ doesn’t run, Valentin said he anticipates the next slate of byelections to be more competitive than those held earlier this month, as Boulerice’s riding should be tightly contested. He also noted that some Conservative MPs in Ontario may decide to resign and run in this fall’s municipal elections in the province now that the Liberals have a majority.

Terrebonne was the only close race amongst the three byelections held earlier this month, with the Liberals easily winning in Scarborough Southwest and University-Rosedale.

As for Wilkinson’s riding, Valentin said the Liberals would be wise to call the byelection as soon as possible as the party is riding high in the polls and could be hurt politically in the Lower Mainland if the Carney government gives a green light to a new oil pipeline from Alberta.

“Don’t mess with a good thing,” he said.

Welcome back to Adjournment Proceedings, our weekly long read series. We publish a new edition every Friday, though we released today’s story a day early. In this week’s edition, we looked at the upcoming wave of federal byelections. 

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