Voters in three federal ridings are being courted this summer by candidates hoping to fill vacant seats in the House of Commons.
There are actually four ridings without an MP right now, but only three byelections. Why didn’t Prime Minister Mark Carney call four?
The answer is a bit complicated, but the bottom line is that Liberal strategists would clearly have advised the prime minister that, given the unique political circumstances of the ridings that are currently vacant, the Liberals could give themselves a boatload more money to spend fighting off the Bloc Québecois in one vacant Québec seat by calling three byelections while depriving the BQ of cash it could use by holding off on that fourth by-election to fill a second vacant Québec seat.
