Federal Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste clinched victory in Terrebonne Monday night, winning back the traditional Bloc Québécois stronghold two months to the day after the Supreme Court cancelled her one-vote victory in last year’s general election.
Her victory this time around, though still narrow, was far more decisive.
With the last of 211 polls reporting just after midnight, Auguste had 22,445 votes, 731 votes ahead of Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné. Conservative Adrienne Charles was third with 1,551 votes, while none of the remaining candidates had more than 250 votes. Turnout in the race was at 50.76 per cent.
“Terrebonne is ready at the decision table,” Auguste told a jubilant crowd of supporters. “I’m ready. Let’s get to work.”
Auguste’s win, alongside two Liberal victories in Toronto byelections, hand Mark Carney’s Liberals a majority government.
The result in Terrebonne caps off a hard-fought campaign that in recent weeks saw both parties’ electoral machines descend on the riding on Montreal’s north shore.
While the Bloc fought to take back the riding, the federal Liberals were hoping to add an extra MP to their government, which in recent months had teetered toward majority status. Since November, four Conservative MPs and one NDP MP have left their parties to join Carney’s Liberals.
“We really worked the ground” in Terrebonne, Health Minister Marjorie Michel told The Gazette. The Liberal MP said she’d spent recent evenings and weekends in the riding, calling herself “the godmother of the campaign.”
Liberal campaigners logged more than 28,000 conversations with Terrebonne voters throughout the race, she said.
Liberal supporters cheer as results are reported on byelection night in Terrebonne on Monday, April 13, 2026. Evan Buhler / Montreal Gazette
Supporters had spent the night huddled in a Terrebonne restaurant, eyes glued to TV screens showing a razor-thin gap between Auguste and Sinclair-Desgagné.
The Bloc MP had led in early results, but Auguste pulled ahead around 10 p.m.
“We’re in a bit of a yo-yo,” Michel told an anxious crowd shortly after Auguste took the lead, predicting a long night.
Supporters grew louder as results appeared to cement Auguste’s lead over Sinclair-Desgagné. “Tatiana, Tatiana, Tatiana,” they cheered, dancing, singing and clapping.
Bloc Québécois supporters cheer as early results are reported in the federal byelection in Terrebonne on Monday, April 13, 2026. Evan Buhler / Montreal Gazette
Bloc candidate concedes
Bloc supporters had started the night energetic as they gathered to watch results, with MP Christine Normandin, the party’s House leader, telling The Gazette she was “confident and optimistic” that Sinclair-Desgagné would come out on top.
By the end of the evening, Sinclair-Desgagné was conceding the race.
“I congratulate my adversaries and especially the abundance of resources deployed by my adversaries in this campaign,” she said, referencing the ministers and party activists who swung by the riding while in town for a Liberal Party convention in Montreal last week. To other Bloc MPs, Sinclair-Desgagné said she was “passing them the torch.”
“They will represent Terrebonne the best that they can,” she said. “They’ll do it well.”
In last year’s general election, Auguste, 24, had unseated incumbent MP Sinclair-Desgagné by just one vote, winning the traditional Bloc stronghold after a judicial recount.
But after a Bloc voter reported that an Elections Canada error had seen her ballot returned to her instead of being counted, Sinclair-Desgagné launched a legal challenge that in February resulted in the Supreme Court annulling Auguste’s victory, ending her brief tenure in Ottawa and requiring a repeat of the 2025 electoral contest.
With the court challenge, “it was a sovereignist who gave a lesson in democracy to the rest of Canada,” Sinclair-Desgagné said in her concession speech.
Coming into Monday’s byelections, Carney’s government was just one MP shy of the 172 needed to form a majority. It ends the night with 174 MPs in the 343-seat House of Commons.
Liberal Party candidate Danielle Martin celebrates winning the byelection for the riding of University–Rosedale, in Toronto, Monday, April 13, 2026. Chris Young / The Canadian Press
Easy Liberal wins in Toronto
The Terrebonne byelection was one of three federal byelections taking place Monday, with voters also casting ballots in the Toronto ridings of Scarborough Southwest and University-Rosedale to replace former Liberal MPs Bill Blair and Chrystia Freeland, respectively.
Those two ridings were never in real doubt, with news networks calling both of them about an hour after polls closed. Danielle Martin, a doctor and McGill University graduate, won University-Rosedale with 64 per cent of the vote, while Doly Begum won Scarborough Southwest with 70 per cent.
Long ballot
The riding was targeted by the Longest Ballot Committee, which signed up dozens of independent candidates to protest the first-past-the-post electoral system. With the ballot listing a total of 48 candidates, of which 41 are officially independent, voters were given a write-in ballot and asked to write the name of their chosen candidate.
The 41 independents, and Mark Moutter of the Rhinoceros Party, managed only 114 votes total of the 46,369 valid votes cast.
Elections Canada warned that the high number of candidates could delay results for this riding.
I’ve reported for The Gazette since 2024. I love covering a good politics story, but any day I tell Montrealers something new about the world around them feels like a good one. Got a tip for me? Email me at jawilson@postmedia.com
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