What a Liberal Win in North Vancouver Means for Federal Politics

It was a Liberal sweep for last night’s three byelections — including right here in British Columbia.

In a race with over 40 per cent turnout, the voters of North Vancouver—Capilano elected to stay the course and sent Prime Minister Mark Carney’s former deputy chief of staff, Braeden Caley, to Ottawa as their next member of Parliament.

The Liberals held their ground on the North Shore, slipping a point to end up with 58.6 per cent of the vote. This was despite the departure of popular former incumbent Jonathan Wilkinson, who won the seat four times in a row and served as MP for over a decade.

For Conservative candidate Stephen Curran, a spirited effort to localize the race was not enough to stave off a slide of 4.5 per cent to 29.2 per cent of the vote, compared with Curran’s showing in the 2025 federal election.

As for the Greens, a high-profile star candidate in Sierra Club campaign director Shelley Luce and repeated visits from party leader Elizabeth May produced a gain from 1.7 per cent vote share in 2025 to 8.7 per cent this time.

The rallying of environmentalists and progressives behind Luce left the NDP’s Stephen Tweedale with just 3.1 per cent, slightly below the 2025 vote share of 4.2 per cent.

Elsewhere, Carney’s strategy of courting of moderate Conservatives paid off with a Liberal gain of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord. While the Liberals also won in the Toronto riding of Beaches—East York, the NDP’s share of the vote jumped from 6.9 per cent to 19 per cent as the party’s campaign centred on stopping noise and pollution from the proposed Billy Bishop airport expansion.

The long shadow of the Trump trade war

In North Vancouver, the campaign was initially a quieter affair. Luce, Curran and Tweedale all campaigned on local issues like traffic congestion across the riding, from the Lions Gate Bridge to the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge. Caley, on the other hand, tied the Liberals’ guidance of Canada through international tumult to the strengthening of local industries such as shipbuilding at the Seaspan shipyards in North Vancouver to build the “North Shore Strong.”

The collapse of trade talks between Canada and the United States midway through the campaign put priorities into focus. Amidst the national crisis, Carney was able to lean into his image as a leader with a steady hand on the tiller and tout ongoing diplomatic efforts to diversify trade away from the U.S.

This was received warmly by the Canadian public. Polling from Liaison Strategies published the day of the byelection showed a last-minute boost in Liberal fortunes, with Carney’s approval rating at 64 per cent and the Liberals up three per cent to reach a 46 per cent approval rating. Capitalizing on Carney’s popularity, Caley’s campaign signs showed not only his face, but a photo of the prime minister as well.

The Conservative campaign

“Voters rally around the flag,” Conservative campaign manager James Knight told The Tyee, “and that’s what happened here.”

Curran congratulated Caley on the win.

“We didn’t get the result we were looking for, obviously, but we raised a lot of important issues,” he said. “I hope that Parliament resumes early so that all parties [can] weigh in on a national strategy to deal with tariffs from the United States, and I hope that the Liberal government is open to collaborating with opposition parties in trying to move Canada forward.”

The Conservatives also heavily courted Iranian-Canadian voters during the byelection, most notably with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre extending an invitation to exiled Iranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi to visit Canada.

Curran said he was proud of his team’s efforts. “There were a lot of Persians here tonight, we were talking about the security issues and they did get a bit of an airing nationally.”

Among some quarters of the community, the effort seems to have paid off. According to preliminary election reports provided to The Tyee by a source affiliated with one of the campaigns, the Conservatives outright won a trio of polls in the Cedardale neighbourhood of North Vancouver where the population is majority West Asian.

Farid Azar, a volunteer on the Liberal campaign who assisted with outreach to the Iranian community, provided further perspective on how the U.S. war with Iran affected local politics in the riding.

“This war… has shown more division within Iranians outside Iran,” he told The Tyee. “There are people that are pro-Shah, there are people that are anti-Shah, there are people that are pro-democracy [and] anti-Shah.”

“I think one consensus would be that the majority of people are against the Iranian regime and what is being done in Iran.”

Greens and the environment

Another topic hot on voters’ minds, especially after a summer filled with destructive wildfires in the Interior, was the environment. The Greens replaced the NDP in third as the leading progressive option in the riding, achieving their best result since 2019.

For Luce, it’s a sign that climate change isn’t a dead issue.

“People understand that climate connects to the high cost of living and that people want to see local solutions that work for this community, like cleaner, faster, cheaper transit, like different types of housing,” she said.

Patrick Weiler is the neighbouring Liberal MP for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country. Weiler said the results for North Vancouver—Capilano are a sign of “a tremendous amount of confidence in the prime minister, the Liberal Party and the candidate.”

Despite the rise in the Green vote, Weiler defended the government’s environmental record. He pointed to the Liberal government’s plan to protect 30 per cent of land and water by 2030, the protection of the Great Bear Sea and continuing efforts to electrify Canada’s grid.

He did concede that “a lot of the time people want to see the government do more,” and that “there is more work that the government needs to do.”

As for Caley himself, Weiler offered effusive praise for his work in multiple constituency offices, under former Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson (now a Liberal MP for Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby), and in the Prime Minister’s Office.

“He understands the workings of government at multiple levels, and I’m sure that there’s many different ways that he’ll be able to contribute.”