OTTAWA

Justin Trudeau's Liberals are set to have a very good Canada Day holiday, as they celebrate what are likely to be strong showings in at least three of four byelections to be held Monday.

In two ridings in Ontario and in two in Alberta, the Liberals will continue to write their "comeback" story as they seek to prove to Canadians that, despite their third-party status after a decade of decline, the Liberals -- and not the New Democrats -- are the only alternative to the Harper Conservatives in 2015.

The day will start with the Conservatives as the incumbent party in two ridings, the NDP holding one and the Liberals holding the other.

There is a very good chance the day will end with a different result.

Macleod, in the Alberta’s southeast corner, will almost surely elect a Conservative to replace the retired Conservative Ted Menzies. The real fight here was the fight among local Conservatives for the nomination. John Barlow, a relative moderate and a former provincial Progressive Conservative, bested several challengers to his political right. The riding has been sending conservative-minded MPs to the House of Commons since 1958. Barlow’s the next one.

Voters in Fort McMurray-Athabasca, in Alberta’s northeast corner, have been doing the same for about as long, electing conservatives since 1968. But here, both Liberals and New Democrats have sensed some dissatisfaction among those who live and work in Canada’s oilsands capital with the Harper government.

Despite the enormous wealth this riding generates for the rest of the province and the country, many in Fort McMurray believe they should some of the wealth should stay in their region and help improve local infrastructure. The NDP are running an oilsands worker — Lori McDaniel, who drives one of those monster dump trucks at a Suncor mine — and have made that the theme of their campaign.

But the Liberal candidate there, Kyle Harrietha, has benefited from Trudeau’s popularity and presence. Trudeau has been in the riding three times during this campaign and was door-knocking there with Harrietha four days ago. Harrietha is still very much a long shot but If political lightning is to strike at all in these byelections, it will be here.

Regardless, the Liberals are likely to do much better here than ever before, just as they did in byelections last fall in two Manitoba ridings, where they had no business being competitive. A strong showing again helps Liberals make a stronger claim that Trudeau, not Mulcair, is the one who can beat Harper.

That claim will get a serious lift if Trudeau’s candidate in the downtown Toronto riding of Trinity Spadina, former Toronto city councillor Adam Vaughan, can steal one from the NDP. This was Olivia Chow’s riding and while the NDP hopes Joe Cressy can succeed here, some New Democrats are worried they might lose it.

The other Ontario riding at issue Monday is also in Toronto, the multicultural northeastern riding of Scarborough-Agincourt, held, ever since the riding was created in 1988, by Liberal Jim Karygiannis. He quit to run for Toronto city council and it seems a lock that Liberal Arnold Chan will succeed him.

The NDP hold two other Scarborough ridings, including the one to the east of this one. The NDP has never finished better than third in Agincourt. Can Mulcair’s NDP at least take a bite out of Trudeau’s Liberal team here?

Strange things can happen in byelections — particularly ones which are likely to have very low turnout because of the timing between a holiday and a weekend — but if you were betting on who will be crowing on Canada Day, a bet on red seems the smart one.