Liberals hold Beaches—East York in federal byelection

“It is going to be the honour of a lifetime to represent the only home I’ve ever known as your next member of Parliament,” a jubilant Shahnawaz told dozens of cheering volunteers gathered at the Stone Lion pub on Queen Street East after a rainy, humid day that saw evening fog roll in from nearby Lake Ontario.

In Quebec, the Liberals were projected to decisively win in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord with more than 50 per cent of the vote ahead of the Bloc Québécois and the Conservatives. It had been expected to be the closest race of the three. Former Tory MP Richard Martel — who Carney recently appointed to the Senate — won with 34 per cent of the vote in last year’s federal election, with the Bloc Québécois second at 31.2 per cent and the Liberals third with 31.1 per cent. 

On the west coast, Carney’s Liberals kept their stronghold of North Vancouver—Capilano, where residents voted 58.8 per cent in favour of former MP Jonathan Wilkinson last time. He is now ambassador to the European Union. 

In Toronto’s east end, with 183 of 200 polls reporting at 11:45 p.m., Shahnawaz had 55 per cent of the vote, compared with the 67.7 per cent won by his former boss, Nate Erskine-Smith, in the April 2025 federal election, and was ahead of New Democrat Shannon Devine at 25.4 per cent and Conservative Jim Syrbos at 16.5 per cent.

It was an improvement for the NDP, which placed third last year with just 6.9 per cent of the vote.

Erskine-Smith quit as the riding’s MP in July, just over a year into his fourth term. He first won in 2015.

The resignation followed a roller coaster spring that saw his ambitions to seek the Ontario Liberal leadership for a second time crushed after losing a close race for the provincial party’s nomination in a byelection to be held Thursday in neighbouring Scarborough Southwest.

Erskine-Smith endorsed and promoted Shahnawaz in an unusually short nine-day nomination race in July that discouraged some potential candidates — including John Tory Jr. — from running.

There had been expectations that Prime Minister Mark Carney would appoint a candidate, as he had earlier this year with Dr. Danielle Martin in University- Rosedale and former New Democrat MPP Doly Begum in Scarborough Southwest. Both won byelections for the Liberals in April. 

The brief window for the nomination race came under fire from former MPP Arthur Potts, who was looking to make the leap into federal politics.

“I don’t think it’s given the candidates enough time to showcase what they could bring, what they have to offer,” Potts said at the time.

Shahnawaz won the nomination in a close race by 13 votes in a ranked ballot over Claire Seaborn, an environmental lawyer and former chief of staff to a federal cabinet minister, Potts, and Summer Nudel, a social worker and mediator. 

After announcing he would step down as MP early in the summer, Erskine-Smith made it widely known he had tapped Shahnawaz as his preferred successor.

Sources speaking confidentially to discuss internal deliberations told the Star the former MP persuaded Carney’s office to hold the brief nomination race, with a membership cut-off two days before the call.

Following the snap announcement, Erskine-Smith made robocalls and videos on behalf of Shahnawaz and was at the entrance of the voting area for the nomination balloting, urging people to support him.

With files from Robert Benzie