Bloc Québécois loses bid to have Terrebonne election redone

Tatiana Auguste (Liberal) initially won Terrebonne on April 28, but validated results named Sinclair-Desgagné the victor. A May 10 recount, however, confirmed Auguste won by one vote.

Alex Dhaliwal
  |   October 28, 2025   |   News   |   1 Comment

 

Facebook / Tatiana Auguste (left)

A Superior Court judge denied a Bloc Québécois candidate's request for a new election in Terrebonne, a Montreal riding the federal Liberals won by one vote in April.

Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, runner-up, challenged the result after a Bloc voter's special ballot was returned due to an Elections Canada address error, arguing this irregularity influenced the close outcome.

Justice Éric Dufour ruled Monday that a postal code error was a simple human error, not an irregularity under federal electoral law, committed inadvertently and without dishonest intent.

“Despite the disappointing result for the elector and Sinclair-Desgagné, this error in no way affects the integrity of the Canadian electoral system in which citizens can still have confidence,” Dufour wrote.

Tatiana Auguste (Liberal) initially won Terrebonne on April 28, but validated results named Sinclair-Desgagné the victor. A May 10 recount, however, confirmed Auguste won by one vote, 23,352 to 23,351.

Emmanuelle Bossé, a local woman, claimed her Bloc vote wasn't counted due to an address error on her special ballot envelope, which was returned post-election after the close result.

“It wasn't me who wrote the address,” said Bossé. “It was Elections Canada that gave me the envelope with the sticker, and all I had to do was write my return address.”

Elections Canada reported five late ballots in Terrebonne were uncounted due to a postal code error, including Bossé’s vote, which was also excluded from the recount.

On September 16, Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault acknowledged “unacceptable” irregularities in the April 28 vote, including misplaced ballots, website crashes, and random poll closures. 

Perrault noted that 115 mail-in ballots with garbled return addresses in Terrebonne. Sixteen mail-in ballots were unaccounted for, and nine electors voted in person after requesting mail-in ballots.

An election employee mistakenly printed his own postal code on at least 40 special ballots, discovered three weeks before election day, sworn statements show.

The employee felt no need to inform his superior of the error, as the number of ballots returned was consistent with past elections.

Dufour ruled that expanding the definition of election irregularity to include such errors would lead to numerous challenges.

He furthered that cancelling riding results “should only be pronounced when the most serious cases occur,” and the current contestation doesn't convince the court it's one of those cases.

Bossé mailed her ballot on April 5, ahead of the April 28 deadline, but it was returned on May 2.

Elections Canada confirmed the Terrebonne results on May 14.

Sinclair-Desgagné's lawyer, Stéphane Chatigny, told the Canadian Press that Bossé's uncounted ballot violated her Charter rights, conflicting with Auguste's lawyer, who argued cancelling the election would disenfranchise Terrebonne voters.

Elections Canada's lawyer admitted an error occurred but cited a 2012 Supreme Court decision setting a high bar for annulling elections due to administrative errors.

Dufour ruled that annulling the election due to an administrative error would be unreasonable, as it didn't prevent Bossé from voting and would disenfranchise other voters. 

The Liberals hold 169 seats, three short of a majority. The Bloc Québécois holds 22 seats.

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Alex Dhaliwal

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Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

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  • Bruce Atchison
    commented 2025-10-28 19:48:24 -0400
    Is that Superior Court judge a Liberal? I wouldn’t put it past the Liberals to pressure judges or have them agree with the party.