RANDALL WHITE, TORONTO. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2026. Two key current political events — one international and the other national — have helped cheer up we progressive voters on the north shore of Lake Ontario (most easterly of the North American Great Lakes).

The international event is of course the April 12, 2026 election in Hungary. The good news is not just that “centre right” democrat Péter Magyar has finally defeated the 16 year-old authoritarian “illiberal democracy” of Viktor Orbán (endorsed by US President Donald Trump and helped or otherwise by the last-minute campaigning of Vice President J.D. Vance in Budapest).

What is most seriously impressive is the magnitude of Mr Magyar’s democratic victory. His Tisza party won 54% of the vote (and a “supermajority” of two-thirds of the seats in the Hungarian parliament), compared with a mere 38% for Orban’s Fidesz party.

Equally impressively, almost 80% of the Hungarian electorate turned out to vote. (Turnout in the most recent April 28, 2025 Canadian federal election, eg, was a mere 69% — a high for the last 10 elections!)

Hungary has not quite turned “left” in this election. (Mr. Magyar is a “centre right” democrat.) But it has turned towards a more broadly progressive political system than the “illiberal”authoritarian regime of Viktor Orbán — taken as a model by the current Trump II administration in Washington, DC.

Hopefully as well this April 12, 2026 democratic move in Hungary will prove a guide to the November 3, 2026 midterm elections in the USA.

Meanwhile, back in the home and native land, three April 13, 2026 federal byelection victories — backed by five earlier “floor crossings” : four from Conservatives and one from New Democrats — have finally given PM Carney’s Liberals a majority government of 174 seats in the federal House (where 172 seats currently constitutes a bare majority!).

Two of these three Liberal byelection victories were in Toronto (University—Rosedale and Scarborough Southwest). And one was in the Montreal “sovereigentist” suburb of Terrebonne.

Liberals won handily in the two Toronto districts. Danielle Martin took 64 % of the vote in University—Rosedale. Doly Begum (former deputy leader of the Ontario provincial New Democrats, now running federally for the Liberals) won almost 70% in Scarborough Southwest.

The vote was much closer in “sovereigntist” Terrebonne. Liberal Tatiana Auguste finally won with 48.4 % of the vote, while Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné of the Bloc Québécois took 46.8 %.

Turnout in byelections for a few districts is virtually never as high as in general elections for the whole country. In both Toronto districts turnout hovered around a third of all registered voters — 32.99 % in University-Rosedale and 33.54 % in Scarborough Southwest.
In the Montreal suburb of Terrebonne, on the other hand, turnout was a much higher 50.76 %!

All this reminds me of my late great French Canadian/canadienne mother-in-law, who moved from Quebec to Ontario in her early 20s way back when. What she noticed most, she once confessed, was how much less interested in politics people were in Ontario than in Quebec!

There seems much agreement among pundits that PM Carney’s new majority government means the Liberals will not have to worry about calling a snap election after a defeat in the House (or for any other reason). And the next federal election in Canada will revert to something pretty much like the fixed date of October 15, 2029.

For we progressive voters on the north shore of Lake Ontario (and elsewhere, and even for some conservative and social democratic voters all across Canada) the good guys will be in office for three more years (as measured from this coming October 15, 2026), at least!

And when we notice such other events as Foreign Policy magazine’s recent colloquium on “Is America a Rogue State?” (with Yes as the obvious answer), the prospect of a stable Canadian majority government led by PM Mark Carney for the next three years (and somewhat more as of today) looks pretty fuckin’ good (as President Trump might say).