Three Federal By-Elections Underway Across Quebec, Ontario and B.C.
Voting opened at 9:30 a.m. local time on Monday, August 31, 2026, in federal by-elections across three electoral districts: Chicoutimi–Le Fjord in Quebec, Beaches–East York in Ontario, and North Vancouver–Capilano in British Columbia (Elections Canada). A by-election fills a seat in the House of Commons that has been vacated between general elections. Polls remain open through the evening under standard Elections Canada hours for each time zone.
Elections Canada scheduled all three contests for the same date. The agency has also been directing voters seeking information on concurrent provincial events elsewhere — including a provincial election and referendum in Quebec and Alberta respectively — to Élections Québec and Elections Alberta, and those looking for Ontario municipal or provincial by-elections to Elections Ontario (Elections Canada). The federal body does not administer municipal, provincial or referendum votes.
In Chicoutimi–Le Fjord, the vacancy stems from Conservative MP Richard Martel's resignation to accept an appointment to the Senate. Martel had held the riding since the 2025 federal election, when he won a tight three-way race, edging out the Liberal and Bloc Québécois candidates by approximately 1,500 votes (The Globe and Mail). His departure opened the seat less than 18 months into the Parliament, forcing the Conservatives to defend a margin that was already narrow.
The Toronto and North Vancouver contests arose from different vacancies. Beaches–East York was triggered by the resignation of former cabinet minister Nate Erskine-Smith, while North Vancouver–Capilano opened after former cabinet minister Jonathan Wilkinson stepped down (The Globe and Mail). Both ridings had been held by Liberals, placing the governing party on defence in two very different urban-suburban electorates.
The stakes differ across the three ridings. Chicoutimi–Le Fjord is the seat most closely watched for what it signals about the Conservative leadership. McGill University political science professor Daniel Béland noted that a Conservative failure to hold the riding would reinforce a narrative that Pierre Poilievre's leadership is in trouble (The Globe and Mail). The riding's 2025 result — a 1,500-vote spread across three parties — means that modest shifts in vote intention among any one bloc of supporters could swing the outcome.
Beaches–East York and North Vancouver–Capilano, by contrast, test the Liberals' ability to retain two incumbencies vacated by senior figures. A government losing either would invite scrutiny of its standing in Toronto's east end or the North Shore of metropolitan Vancouver, though the specific dynamics in each riding depend on local candidate quality, turnout and the degree to which federal polling has moved since the 2025 general election.
The decision to hold all three votes on a single date follows Elections Canada's practice of batching by-elections where administratively feasible. Advance polls and mail-in ballots were available in all three districts in the weeks leading up to August 31 (Elections Canada). Results will be released riding by riding as polls close across the country's time zones, with British Columbia reporting last.
The broader context here is that by-elections held in the latter half of a minority Parliament tend to be read as referendums on the sitting government's trajectory — and, where an opposition party holds the seat, on the leader's grip on the caucus's confidence. A minority Parliament means the governing party does not hold a majority of seats and depends on other parties' votes to pass legislation. Three ridings across three provinces, each with a distinct configuration of incumbent party and competitive margin, will give strategists on Parliament Hill granular data points to parse once the votes are counted.
