TORONTO — Voters in an eastern Ontario riding head to the polls Thursday in a provincial byelection that may end up being a tighter race than its recent electoral history would suggest.
The Bay of Quinte riding has only been vacant for a month, since cabinet minister Todd Smith resigned, but Premier Doug Ford called the byelection just five days after Smith announced his abrupt departure.
Smith had represented the Bay of Quinte riding since 2018 — as well as one of the two ridings it was created from since 2011 — and won with nearly 50 per cent of the vote in the last two elections.
But the Bay of Quinte's predecessor ridings have also elected Liberals in the recent past, and Smith's stronghold on the riding through four elections was at least partly due to his status as a very well-liked representative, said Mitch Heimpel, director of policy at strategic communications firm Enterprise Canada and a former staffer for Smith.
"I think there's probably a misconception about how safe a Conservative seat it is, in part because Todd just won so overwhelmingly," he said.
Heimpel, who helped lead voter contact and get-out-the-vote efforts in three of Smith's election campaigns, said different areas of the riding have some distinct characteristics – there are a lot of Toronto expats in Prince Edward County, while many rural parts of the riding are quite conservative, and residents in the city of Belleville tend to vote Liberal.
"There will be people that pointed out that Todd Smith won every poll in the city of Belleville in the last election, which is true, but that's the first time that happened," he said.
"And that took a generational election, in terms of conservatives elected to Queen's Park, plus an incredibly popular local MPP."
A recent poll by Liaison Strategies in the riding suggested a very close race between the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals, though the margin of error was 4.21 per cent, 19 times out of 20 with a sample size of 541 people.
The Progressive Conservatives did not make candidate Tyler Allsopp available for an interview, but a press release announcing him as the candidate said he is a Belleville councillor who has also co-founded several community initiatives.
Liberal candidate Sean Kelly is a councillor alongside Allsopp and as a radio broadcaster he also shares a key piece of employment history with Smith, who worked at the local station for many years.
"There must be something in the water at Quinte Broadcasting — or it tells you the quality of people they hire," Kelly joked.
The top issue Kelly said he has been hearing about at the doors is health care.
"It seemed like every second, third door I was knocking on, they don't have a family doctor, they don't have a nurse practitioner," he said.
NDP candidate Amanda Robertson, a school board trustee, also said she has been hearing about health care the most while she is canvassing, though people are also clamoring for more affordable housing and rent controls.
"I think the number one issue across the board, regardless of who we're talking to, whether they're Conservative or Liberal or NDP leaning, is around the family doctor shortage and a lack of access to primary care here in the Bay of Quinte," she said.
Robertson notes that the NDP has finished second in the riding in the last two provincial elections, so the New Democrats shouldn't be counted out in this race.
"While we have flipped red to blue, and then we've been blue for 13 years, I would say that we have a really strong base of support here for the NDP in our area," she said.
Respiratory therapist Lori Borthwick is running for the Greens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
Allison Jones, The Canadian Press
