At first glance, the by-election taking place Monday in the coveted state of Mississauga-Lakeshore in the greater Toronto area is exciting.

This is Canada’s Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre’s first election test in a region where the party will need to scale up if it wants to come to power.

The Conservatives won in 2011 when Stephen Harper won a parliamentary majority. And seven years have passed since current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power.

The Liberals sought to turn the odds in their favor by electing a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister. And Mr. Poilievre barely showed up in the county during the election campaign.

“The Liberals should be able to win,” said Philippe Fournier, an analyst on the political scene.

But he warns that the results of a by-election don’t always mean the same thing.

“If the Conservatives win, that’s a big story. If the Liberals win by a five or six percentage point margin, that’s fine,” adds Mr Fournier.

According to him, if Pierre Poilievre is to aspire to the post of prime minister, the Conservatives must learn to win around Toronto.

“If we look at the electoral map, we see that Conservatives have filled in in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. They can hope to remove a few Atlantic voyages, maybe two or three others in Quebec, maybe two or three others in British Columbia, he analyzes. But that will not bring them ultimate victory. They need to earn more in Ontario. Where can they make profits? In Mississauga and Scarborough.”

Conservative candidate Ron Chhinzer is an officer with the Peel Regional Police Service and an expert on criminal gangs. He did not respond to several interview requests.

Briant Gallant is a 53-year-old Conservative voter. Even though he admits he doesn’t know him well, he still wants to vote for him.

“I’m sick of the Liberals. i want a change We definitely need a change,” he says.

On the Liberal side, it is former Prime Minister Kathleen Wynne’s former Treasury Secretary who is presenting her candidacy. Charles Sousa lost his Mississauga South seat in the 2018 provincial election.

He relies on his experience of community service and government to persuade voters to vote for him.

“People want someone who is positive, outgoing, willing to listen to them and able to move things forward. I try to avoid partiality. I’m not on one end of the spectrum,” says Sousa.

The NDP, which finished a distant third behind the winner in the last three elections, features Julia Kole, a former district office staffer. She hopes frustrated Liberal Party voters will target her party rather than the Conservatives.

“Let’s look at what the NDP was able to achieve. The Liberal government was indecisive, delaying their decisions, we were able to hold them accountable. We are small, but powerful.”

A total of 40 candidates will fight, the vast majority of whom are independents. No fewer than 32 independent candidates are lining up to protest Justin Trudeau’s decision to break his promise to reform the electoral system.

In the 2021 elections, Liberal Sven Spengemann won with more than 3,000 votes. He resigned to get a job at the UN.