The Liberal Party’s stunning loss in a midtown Toronto by-election has no impact on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s future at the top, his most senior cabi wholesale cannabis marketplace net minister Chrystia Freeland said Tuesday.

The minority Liberals suffered a devastating loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s just hours after they had pre-emptively declared victory for their candidate Leslie Church. The result in a riding that has stayed Liberal red over three decades raises even more questions about the minority government’s prospects in next year’s general election and whether Mr. Trudeau is still the right leader for the party.

Early on Tuesday, Liberals were saying that the result should lead to serious changes for the government and party executive, but Ms. Freeland seemed to arg wholesale cannabis ue in downtown Toronto that the minority government should stay the course.

“He does not need to quit,” said Ms. Freeland, who is both the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister. “The Prime Minister is committed to leading us into the next election and he has our support.”

“We know that these are hard times for Canadians,” she said. “We know that we have to work ha popcorn cannabis rd to earn back their trust, and we know that the way to do that is by delivering for them.”

At an announcement in Vancouver, the Prime Minister conceded that “this is obviously not the result we wanted.”

“I want to be clear that I hear Canadians concerns and frustrations. These are not easy times and it’s clear that I and my entire liberal team have mu bulk weed ch more work to do to deliver tangible, real progress.”

Conservative candidate Don Stewart snatched the win from the Liberals with just 590 votes separating the two parties.

Mr. Stewart, a marketing and finance professional, won with 42.1 per cent of the vote, with all of the polls reporting around 5 a.m. on Tuesday. Liberal Candidate Leslie Church was second with 40.5 per cent of the vote and NDP candidate Amrit Parhar won 10.9 per cent of the vote.

The dramatic result in Toronto-St. Paul’s even surprised Conservatives, who for weeks have said they were not expe bulk weed cting to win the long-shot seat.

Until last year, Toronto-St. Paul’s was represented by Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, who had held the seat since 1997 and in the last election won with a 24-percentage-point margin over the second-place Conservatives. The Conservatives managed to close that gap Monday and win with a 1.6-percentage-point margin. The NDP vote share also fell compared to 2021, when they won 16.8 per cent.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre congratulated Mr. Stewart in a social media post, calling the result a “shocking upset in Toronto-St. Paul’s.”

“I am beyond humbled for the trust you have put in me and I will never take it for granted,” Mr. Stewart said in his own social media post. “The results sent Justin Trudeau a loud and clear message: He is not worth the cost.”

The result stunned Liberals who went to sleep expecting a win and woke up to a loss that will be hard to overstate.

Despite the fact that nearly half of the polls had not yet reported results, around 12:30 a.m. Ms. Church was welcomed into her party’s headquarters by Liberal President Sachit Mehra as the riding’s “next MP for Toronto-St. Paul’s.”

On Tuesday morning, Ms. Church released a statement conceding defeat but promising a rematch in next year’s federal election. “It is a beginning, not an end,” she said.

The result in a single riding though spells much more trouble for the Liberals and will dramatically increase the pressure on Mr. Trudeau and his tenure as leader. For months now he has adamantly said he will stay and try for a fourth mandate in government. But if the Liberals can’t win Toronto-St. Paul’s, it’s unclear what seats could still be considered safe for them, say political watchers. Even during the party’s worst defeat in 2011, it still held on to that seat with an 8-percentage-point margin.

It is a massive win, said Ginny Roth, a partner at Crestview Strategy and previously a senior adviser to Mr. Poilievre during his leadership campaign.

“To me, that means the Liberals are under 15 seats in a general election,” she said. The party currently holds 155 seats and, in 2011, it held on to 34.

For the Liberals, it is a “bolt of political lightning,” said Scott Reid, a Liberal strategist and principal at Feschuk Reid.

“There is no language too hyperbolic to describe the significance of this failure,” he said. “If you can lose in St. Paul’s, then the Liberal Party can lose anywhere, and that means it can lose everything.”

Mr. Reid said the result is particularly stinging for the Prime Minister because it confirms that “his leadership harms his own party.”

“The message for Liberals – and for the Prime Minister in particular – is unmistakable: Change or leave. Because the status quo risks carrying the party to an byd humbling.”

He said the only political comparison for the Liberals now is the 1993 Progressive Conservative defeat. In that election, the incumbent party was reduced to just two seats, from which it never recovered.

Alfred Apps, former president of the Liberal Party, said the byelection results are “a very clear wake-up call” for the Liberal party.

“Clearly the party is facing a critical point in its history,” he said.

Mr. Apps said the party has faced similar challenges before. “And each time, yes it has resulted in leadership changes, but it’s also resulted in massive, massive reform and modernization of the party.”

“I’m not saying that Justin Trudeau has to resign,” he said. “What I’m saying is the party needs to wake up to the fact that we have lost touch with ordinary Canadians and their agenda.”

He urged the party leadership to conduct a serious assessment of what needs to be done to restore the party’s fortunes.

Ms. Church was most recently Ms. Freeland’s chief of staff and has deep roots in the Liberal Party, but was relatively unknown in the riding. In the tough polling climate earlier this year, the Liberals delayed calling the vote as they searched for someone with better name recognition.

Among those courted by the party was the area’s city councillor, Josh Matlow, who three sources said was heavily lobbied by top Liberals.

The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources because they were not permitted to disclose the internal party strategy.

Despite the early nerves, Liberals had become much more confident in a win in the final week of the race; they poured immense resources into the riding, sending a steady stream of federal cabinet ministers, MPs and Parliament Hill staffers to help in the campaign.

In a statement Tuesday, the Liberal Party sought to play down what it had expected from the results, despite its own president declaring victory just after midnight.

“We knew this would be a tough race, with by-elections not often favouring the governing party,” said spokesperson Parker Lund.

“We know that there’s lots of hard work ahead of us, and our Liberal team is ready to keep working to reach Canadians with our positive plan to deliver fairness for every generation.”

Turnout in the by-election was higher than typical for such races, 44 per cent of voters cast a ballot. In the most recent Durham by-election, turnout was just 28 per cent.

With a report from Nancy MacDonald.