Judicial recount gives Trudeau's Liberals one more victory in Quebec

Photo: The Canadian Press

A Liberal Party of Canada logo is shown on a giant screen as a technician looks on during day one of the party's biennial convention in Montreal, Thusday, Feb. 20, 2014. Federal Liberals say they've picked up another seat in Quebec after a judicial recount.

They say incumbent Brenda Shanahan will be returning to Parliament after the recount declared her the winner in Chateauguay-Lacolle over her Bloc Quebecois rival by just 12 votes. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

The federal Liberals have picked up another seat in Quebec after a judicial recount Wednesday.

Elections Canada confirmed that incumbent Brenda Shanahan will be returning to Parliament after the recount declared her the winner in Châteauguay-Lacolle over her Bloc Québécois rival by just 12 votes.

That overturns preliminary results from the Sept. 20 election, which had Shanahan losing to the Bloc's Patrick O'Hara by 286 votes.

The recount bumps up the total number of seats won by Justin Trudeau's Liberals to 160, although the winner in one of them — Kevin Vuong in Toronto's Spadina-Fort York — will be sitting as an Independent MP after failing to disclose to the party a past sexual assault charge that was ultimately dropped.

It boosts the Liberal seat tally in Quebec to 35, the same as the party won in 2019; the Bloc emerges with 32 seats, also unchanged from 2019.

The Conservatives took 10 seats in the province and the NDP one, also unchanged.

Liberal party spokesman Braeden Caley said Trudeau is now the first prime minister since his late father, Pierre Trudeau, to win the most seats in Quebec three elections in a row.

The election returned Trudeau's Liberals with a minority government, 10 seats short of the 170 needed for a majority.