Liberals 3, Conservatives 1.

This is from the canadianpress. Considering these were all Liberal seats and the Toronto seats were quite safe the results hardly are encouraging for the Liberals. The Quadra race was quite close. The Consevatives won handily in Saskatchewan against a high profile woman candidate hand-picked by Dion. The turnout in Saskatchewan was dismal. Surely the undemocratic fashion in which Beatty was foisted upon the constituency was a factor in her defeat.

Liberals win three byelections, Tories take one
12 hours ago

OTTAWA — Liberals captured three of four federal byelections Monday, but the loss of a Saskatchewan riding and a close call in the Liberal bastion of Vancouver Quadra may dampen their enthusiasm for using the results to trampoline into a spring election.

The results gave Prime Minister Stephen Harper some cause for encouragement if Liberals do pull the plug on his minority Conservative government.

The Tories picked up the rural Saskatchewan seat from the Liberals and made modest gains in two of the three urban ridings up for grabs, where Harper must make inroads if he is ever to win a majority.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the outcome "sets us up well for the next general election."

NDP Leader Jack Layton, however, was given reason to regret that he's spent so much time lately trying to goad the Liberals into forcing an election. NDP popular support collapsed in the two Toronto ridings and its candidates were neck and neck with the surging Green party in three of four ridings.

All four ridings were won by the Liberals in the 2006 election.

Turnout was generally abysmal, with less than 30 per cent of eligible voters showing up to cast ballots in three of the four ridings.

The byelection results bolster Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's front bench and go some way toward delivering on his promise to boost the influence of women.

Bob Rae, former leadership rival and one-time NDP premier of Ontario, officially joined the Dion team after cruising to victory in Toronto Centre with 59 per cent of the vote.

Martha Hall Findlay, another erstwhile leadership rival, scored a similarly resounding victory in Toronto's Willowdale.

But former B.C. cabinet minister Joyce Murray barely managed a razor-thin victory in Vancouver Quadra, taking the riding by a mere 151 votes over Tory Deborah Meredith.

"For Stephen Harper, leadership is one-manship," Dion told pumped Liberal troops at Rae's victory party.

"But leadership is also knowing you cannot do it alone. Leadership is knowing you have to build a team . . . Tonight, it's clearer than ever that as a leader I have a much better team than Stephen Harper."

However, Dion's hand-picked candidate in Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River - former provincial NDP cabinet minister Joan Beatty - went down to resounding defeat. Tory Rob Clarke trounced Beatty, capturing about 48 per cent of the vote to her 31 per cent.

The loss is not likely to deal Dion's leadership a serious blow since Liberals had regarded Desnethe as unpredictable from the outset. It was the only one of the four ridings that was not considered a safe Liberal seat. The Grits snatched it from the Tories in 2006 by only 67 votes.

But Dion can expect to face some recriminations for making a precarious situation worse. His decision to appoint Beatty - short-circuiting the democratic nomination process and freezing out anti-free trade activist David Orchard - infuriated some aboriginal leaders and divided Liberal supporters.

He'll also face questions about the decline in Liberal support in Vancouver Quadra, which the Liberals have held since it was captured by former leader John Turner in 1984. In the last election, Stephen Owen won the riding for the Grits with 49 per cent of the vote, 20 points ahead of his Tory rival.

That margin was whittled down to less than one percentage point in Monday's byelection, with Conservative Meredith getting 35.5 per cent of the vote. Liberal support appeared to have bled primarily to the Green party, which almost tripled its vote to about 13.5 per cent.

However unnerving the tightness of the Quadra race, a loss there would have been devastating for Dion's leadership.

Dion's grip on the party was badly shaken last fall when the Liberals were shut out of three byelections in Quebec, including the Grit stronghold of Outremont. Insiders had predicted Dion would face an open revolt if he lost another safe Liberal seat.

Elizabeth May was delighted with her party's showing, which she suggested should end the characterization of the Greens as a fringe party. It should also put an end to another question, she said:

"This strength should - I hope - settle the matter of whether the Green party should be allowed in the next debate," May said in an interview.