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Leslie Church, a lawyer who has advised the Liberals on policy, won Toronto-St. Paul’s in a rematch with Conservative Don Stewart.

Last June, Stewart won the riding once considered one of the safest Liberal seats in Canada, in a byelection that shocked the political establishment. Many considered Church’s loss a referendum on then-Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s leadership.

In this race, at the door talking up new leader Carney as the best leader to confront U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to Canadian sovereignty, Church handily won. At 11:30 p.m., with results still rolling in, her vote total almost doubled that of Stewart.

Church told the Star from her victory celebration that she was “deeply, deeply grateful for the trust that the community has put in me to be their representative.”

Asked what changed since the last race, she said, “The stakes of the election are different. They are off the charts in terms of what I was hearing in the doors around Trump in particular … and the second piece is Mark Carney stepping up, being the Prime Minister, bringing his experience and steady hands to an unfolding economic crisis.”

Asked how she feels about the possibility of her party winning a minority rather than the majority government predicted by many polls, Church said, “The No. 1 priority here after the election is going to be to bring people together.

“I think that we’ve been in a very tumultuous political climate for a number of months, and really with the threats at our doorstep from down south, what matters now is everybody working together across parties, across levels of governments … I think we’re going to have to put an emphasis on finding unity, taking down the temperature, and getting to work.”

Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, however, struck back in York Centre. Roman Baber, a former Ontario MPP kicked out of the Progressive Conservative party for opposing COVID-19 restrictions, defeated Liberal incumbent Ya’ara Saks, who had served as Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health.

Baber represented the area provincially from 2018 to 2022. He has been a vocal opponent of vaccination mandates and a supporter of the convoy movement that occupied downtown Ottawa in 2022.

Both politicians are Jewish. Much of the campaign centred on demands from some residents that authorities crack down on pro-Palestinian protests in the riding, as well as debate over the Liberal government’s stance on Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza.

Baber pointed to a March 2024 photo of Saks with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, when she was on a trip with Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly to meet Palestinian and Israeli politicians. Saks pointed to Baber’s support for the Ottawa occupation, noting that some protesters displayed Nazi flags.

A little after midnight, Eglinton-Lawrence remained too close to call. Liberal newcomer Vince Gasparro led for most of the night but, with 135 of 213 polls reporting, Conservative Karen Stintz, the former city councillor and TTC chair, had moved into a slim lead.

Mideast politics were also a hot-button issue in that race.

This election also marked the end of the political career, for now, at least, of Bhutila Karpoche.

The popular two-term NDP MPP, the first Tibetan-Canadian elected in Canada, quit provincial politics to run for federal NDP in Taiaiako’n-Parkdale-High Park.

She was defeated, however, by Liberal newcomer Karim Bardeesy, who runs a think tank at pc28����Metropolitan University and held senior policy positions in the past Ontario Liberal governments of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne. 

Karpoche was the NDP’s best shot at regaining ground in Toronto. The New Democrats haven’t held a pc28����seat since 2015, when eight incumbents were swept out in Justin Trudeau’s first Liberal victory. 

Bardeesy attributed his victory over Karpoche in part to his team of almost 300 volunteers who showed up on election day.

“That really helps make a difference,” he said, speaking to the Star over the noise of his victory party at Fox and John’s Pub in Bloor West Village.

“It energizes people and it makes them want to support your cause.”

Bardeesy said the Liberals’ near-sweep of the city’s two dozen ridings showed his party has “a very strong team,” and “that we can really deliver things for pc28����and Ontario.”

But he added that, given the threats from the U.S., many voters were thinking nationally rather than about local issues, and were attracted by Carney’s “positive” stance on defending Canadian sovereignty.

Chrystia Freeland helped set up this election when she quit Justin Trudeau’s cabinet in December, a political bombshell that set in motion the eventual resignation of the then-prime minister.

In a victory speech after holding onto her seat in Toronto’s University-Rosedale, Freeland, who was Trudeau’s deputy prime minister and ran unsuccessfully to replace him as Liberal leader, said her party had “a great night.”

She told jubilant supporters at the El Mocambo concert venue on Spadina Avenue to think back to December, when the pundits were “writing off” the Liberals and predicting they would be lucky to hold onto official party status.

“Look at where we are now!” she said to cheers, declaring that the party was “painting pc28����red.”

Other Liberals re-elected included Yvan Banker, who fended off a challenge from former Conservative MP Ted Opitz.

In Scarborough-Guildwood-Rouge Park, an open seat after Liberal incumbent John McKay decided not to run again, Gary Anandasangaree beat Conservative Suchita Jalan and the NDP’s Kingsley Kwok.

Anandasangaree was previously MP for Scarborough-Rouge Park.