Justin Trudeau under pressure as his party loses Montreal election

Canada’s ruling Liberal party has lost a once-safe seat in Montreal, a result that is likely to put more pressure on the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to quit.

Elections Canada said that with 100% of the votes counted in the parliamentary constituency of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, the separatist Bloc Québécois candidate, Louis-Philippe Sauvé, had beaten the Liberal candidate, Laura Palestini, by a whisker: 28% to 27.2%. The New Democratic party (NDP) candidate received 26.1%.

The election, which was held to replace a Liberal legislator who quit, will put more focus on the political future of Trudeau, who has become increasingly unpopular after almost 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 legislators have broken ranks to call for change at the top.

Alexandra Mendès, a Liberal MP who represents a Québec constituency, said last week that many of her constituents wanted Trudeau to go.

In the 2021 general election, the Liberal party won the Montreal seat with 43% of the vote, ahead of the Bloc Québécois on 22% and the NDP on 19%.

Polls now suggest that the Liberals will lose badly in the next federal election to the right-of-centre Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre. A Leger poll last week put public support for the Conservatives at 45%, a level rarely seen nationally in Canada, with the Liberals in second place at 25%.

Trudeau’s popularity has sagged as voters struggle with a surge in the cost of living and a housing crisis.

Poilievre has promised to do away with a federal carbon tax that he claims is making life unaffordable and last week vowed to cap immigration limits until more homes could be built.

Liberals concede the polls look grim but say they will redouble efforts to portray Poilievre as a supporter of the Make America Great Again movement led by the former US president Donald Trump.

Poilievre, an acerbic career politician who often insults his opponents, also says he would defund the CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster. In April he was ejected from the House of Commons after he called Trudeau “a wacko”.