Emmanuelle Bosse holds the letter that was returned by Canada Post, in Terrebonne, Que., on May 15.Andrej Ivanov/The Globe and Mail
The single ballot that could determine the next member of Parliament for Terrebonne, Que., is stored somewhere in Emmanuelle Bossé’s apartment. She won’t say where, but “you’d have to dig a little bit to find it.”
In one of the strangest and closest election results in Canadian history, the Liberals have claimed the Montreal-area riding over the Bloc Québécois by a margin of one vote. That was unusual enough – perhaps even unprecedented – before Ms. Bossé entered the picture.
The 34-year-old content creator has added another twist to the saga. She says her mail-in ballot was returned to her on May 2, apparently because of an incorrect postal code on the envelope’s preprinted address. That was after election day, too late for her to vote in person.
And Ms. Bossé voted for the Bloc. If her ballot had been counted, a race in which more than 60,000 people voted would have been tied.
The Bloc has said it is keeping its options open, and legal experts say a new election may be the only valid recourse. Whatever happens, Ms. Bossé is keeping a close watch on that telltale envelope.
“If I open it,” she said, “it will be in front of a judge.”
Terrebonne has already provided more than its share of surprises and reversals of fortune this election. The Liberals were not expected to be competitive in a long-time Bloc stronghold.
But Prime Minister Mark Carney led a red wave in the province, especially in the suburbs around the Island of Montreal, and Liberal political newcomer Tatiana Auguste seemed to have claimed the seat by a mere 35 votes on election night.
The standard validation process flipped the result for the first time, handing the seat to Bloc candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, this time by just 44 votes.
But the see-saw wasn’t finished. Because the margin of victory was less than 0.1 per cent of the valid votes cast, a judicial recount was automatic.
Three other recounts are under way across the country, but any seat changes that could occur as a result wouldn’t be enough to change the overall election outcome, a Liberal victory.
In Terrebonne, a judge accompanied by the candidates and their lawyers sifted through the ballots, discarding ones that were spoiled, and found that Ms. Auguste had prevailed by a single vote.
Several political scientists contacted by The Globe and Mail said they have never heard of a Canadian election being so close.
“I think it’s a first,” said University of Montreal law lecturer and political analyst Frédéric Bérard.
The story may have ended there and entered the annals of political trivia as an example of why candidates should always knock on one more door, if Ms. Bossé hadn’t gotten involved.
She was immediately angry when she saw her ballot in the mailbox on May 2 because it meant her vote hadn’t been counted, but at the time the result was not historically tight. She posted an irate Instagram story and then moved on.
But when she realized the margin in Terrebonne was a single vote, the professional YouTuber took to social media again.
“It was from that point that I said, ‘Eh, I have a vote here for the Bloc and I’m not going to be quiet,’” Ms. Bossé recalled. “We often say every vote counts – but this time it’s really true. It’s almost a caricature."
Neither the Bloc nor the Liberals responded to requests for interviews with the candidates.
In a statement on Wednesday, Elections Canada acknowledged that there was an error with the final three characters of the postal code on the label affixed to the envelope. Although the agency said this was the only such incident it was aware of, chief electoral officer Stéphane Perrault announced that he was broadening a review of the special ballot system.
Some public figures, including the influential sovereigntist columnist Mathieu Bock-Côté, have called for a new election in Terrebonne as a result of the irregularity.
University of Ottawa common law professor Michael Pal, an expert in election law, says that because the recount has already happened, the only legal recourse under the Elections Act is to file a claim with the Superior or Federal Court. That claim would allege that there were irregularities, and “that there were enough of them to affect the election results,” he said.
If the allegation of the wrong postal code being printed on the ballot is proven, “or there were more, it seems reasonably likely that a by-election would be ordered,” Prof. Pal said. While judges do have discretion, a by-election is the usual recourse.
Normally, the challenge for claimants is to prove that there were irregularities after the fact, and that those irregularities affected the result. In this case, he said, there would likely be documentary evidence in the form of the ballot.
For Ms. Bossé, there is something surreal about being in possession of a piece of paper whose contents are being scrutinized across the country. Particularly with the Liberals sitting just two seats shy of a majority and trying to recruit opposition MPs, the weight of a single ballot may never have been greater.
For days, Ms. Bossé had the envelope sitting out on her kitchen counter like any other piece of mail. But then she got spooked.
“Now I’ve hidden it a little better,” she said.
With reports from Ian Bailey