Pierre Poilievre congratulates candidate on decisive Cloverdale ...

The federal Conservatives won a byelection in the B.C. riding of Cloverdale-Langley City, the latest blow to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals. Richard Zussman reports.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre congratulated MP Tamara Jansen on her win in Cloverdale-Langley City following a byelection on Monday.

Jansen won by a significant margin earning 9,931 votes, or 66.5 per cent of the total vote share, once all 122 polls had finished reporting.

In a statement on social media, Poilievre said “Congratulations to common sense Conservative Tamara Jansen on winning the former Liberal riding of Cloverdale-Langley City, with twice as many votes as all the other candidates combined.

“The message is clear, Canadians want an axe the tax election now.”

Jansen previously held the seat from 2019 to 2021.

Liberal candidate Madison Fleischer, a local business owner, received 16.0 per cent of votes, while BC NDP candidate Vanessa Sharma received 12.5 per cent.

The byelection loss caped off a tumultuous day for the Liberal party and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigned from cabinet earlier Monday and criticized what she referred to as “costly political gimmicks” in her resignation letter shared on social media.

The loss also comes after the Liberals were previously defeated in two other byelections in long-held seats over the last several months.

Freeland’s resignation, dismal poll numbers and the recent byelection losses have all inspired public calls from inside and outside of Trudeau’s caucus for him to resign as party leader.

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Cloverdale-Langley City, which encompasses parts of Langley and Surrey, became vacant when former Liberal MP John Aldag stepped down to make an unsuccessful run for provincial politics with the BC NDP.

The seat has swung between the Liberals and Conservatives in recent elections. Aldag won the riding in 2015 and was unseated by Jansen in 2019. Aldag won the seat back for the Liberals by a narrow margin in 2021.

Fourteen thousand, nine hundred and seventy-nine out of of 92,061 registered electors participated in Monday’s byelection, meaning voter turnout was 16.27 per cent. That number does not include electors who registered on election day.

Due to the Canada Post strike, voters in the region did not receive a voting card reminder.

– With files from The Canadian Press