More than 18,000 voters cast advance ballot in Terrebonne byelection

Thousands of Quebec voters have already cast a ballot in one of three federal byelections that could have major implications on the makeup of the House of Commons.

According to Elections Canada estimates, some 18,200 people voted during the four advance polling days in Terrebonne – from Friday to Monday.

That amounts to nearly 20 per cent of people on the voters’ list.

The byelection in Terrebonne comes after the Supreme Court nullified Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste’s one-vote federal election win in the riding.

Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné challenged the results when a Bloc supporter complained she tried to vote by mail using a special ballot that wasn’t counted.

Terrebonne, which was held by the Bloc before the last federal election, is once again considered a toss-up between the Liberals and Bloc — with the same two candidates going head to head this time around.

The riding saw 68 per cent voter turnout in the 2025 election.

The two Toronto-area ridings that are also holding byelections on April 13 are Scarborough Southwest, where an estimated 10,300 voters cast an advance ballot, and University–Rosedale, where some 9,400 electors have already voted.

The University-Rosedale seat was left vacant after former Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland departed to serve as an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and become CEO of the Rhodes Trust.

Bill Blair, also a former Liberal MP, left the riding of Scarborough Southwest vacant after he was appointed Canada’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom.

The Toronto ridings are considered to be safe seats for the Liberals.

Liberal wins in the two Toronto ridings would bring the party to 172 seats in the House of Commons, which is enough for a majority.

But because the Speaker does not typically vote, a government with 172 seats still needs at least one opposition member to vote with them or abstain from voting to pass legislation — which means all eyes will be on the race in Terrebonne, which could give the Liberals a critical extra seat.

An adapted ballot has been created for the Terrebonne bylection, as Elections Canada expected an influx of independent candidates running as part of the Longest Ballot Committee protest against first-past-the-post results.

That means in the two Toronto byelections, voters will receive a ballot with all candidate names already printed on it, while in Terrebonne the ballot will be blank and voters will have to write in the name of their preferred candidate by hand. A list of all candidates will be provided at each voting booth.

There are 48 candidates on the Terrebonne ballot, 41 of them running without a party banner.

–With files from The Canadian Press