Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to hold three federal by-elections on August 31 is a cynical choice that puts Liberal political interests ahead of democratic participation, says the Green Party of Canada.

Canada has held only one federal general election culminating in August, in 1953. Elections Canada records turnout in that election at just 67.5 per cent, well below the elections immediately before and after it, and notes that many potential voters were away on vacation.

Carney has now chosen the final Monday of August for by-elections in Beaches-East York, Chicoutimi-Le Fjord and North Vancouver-Capilano. The Prime Minister announced the August 31 date on July 26.

“Canadians should be asking why Mark Carney decided the last Monday of August was the right moment to ask people to choose who represents them in Parliament,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. “Our democracy works best when governments make it as easy as possible for people to participate. Choosing a date when families are travelling, students are preparing to return to school and many Canadians are squeezing in the final days of summer vacation does the opposite. It suppresses participation, and that is what makes this choice undemocratic. Governments have a responsibility to make it as easy as possible for people to choose their representatives.”

Two of the three vacancies also expose growing problems inside Carney’s own Liberal government.

In Beaches-East York, former Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith left federal politics after a decade in Parliament. Carney had dropped Erskine-Smith from cabinet following the 2025 election, and his departure came after increasing public criticism of the government’s environmental direction. Erskine-Smith described the Canada-Alberta agreement as “unfortunate climate backsliding” and warned that federal work on clean energy and the environment was still not operating at a scale commensurate with the challenge.

“Nate Erskine-Smith was willing to say publicly what Canadians can already see: Mark Carney is taking this country backwards on climate,” said May. “His departure did not happen in a political vacuum. When one of your own MPs is warning about climate backsliding and the failure to meet the scale of the climate crisis, the Prime Minister should be listening. Instead, Carney is asking the people of Beaches-East York to choose Nate’s replacement on August 31.”

The circumstances in North Vancouver-Capilano are even more blatant. Former MP Jonathan Wilkinson resigned after accepting Carney’s invitation to become Canada’s Ambassador to the European Union, directly creating the vacancy now being contested. The Liberal Party then selected Braeden Caley, until recently Carney’s own Deputy Chief of Staff with no direct ties to the riding, as its candidate for the riding.

“Mark Carney creates a vacancy by asking an elected MP to take another job, his own deputy chief of staff emerges as the Liberal candidate despite having no ties to the riding, Liberals publicly talk about it as a ‘safe Liberal seat,’ and then the Prime Minister schedules the vote for the dying days of August,” said May. “It is hard to imagine a more cynical way to treat the people of North Vancouver-Capilano.”

“Seats in the House of Commons do not belong to the Prime Minister,” continued May. “They are not appointments to be handed from one member of the Prime Minister’s inner circle to another. They belong to the voters. Treating them as anything else is anti-democratic.”

The Green Party says Canadians in all three ridings deserve a government that encourages the broadest possible participation in choosing their representatives.

“Democracy is not an inconvenience to be managed around the governing party’s political interests,” said May. “The Prime Minister knew exactly when he was calling these votes. He chose August 31, Canadians should ask why.”

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