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OTTAWA — Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have pulled off a stunning upset, winning a federal byelection in the heartland of Quebec nationalism.

Liberal Richard Hébert has won the riding of Lac-Saint-Jean, a riding held by the Tories since 2007 and once the home base of sovereigntist champion and one-time premier Lucien Bouchard.

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The Liberals last won the riding in 1980.

Even in the 2015 election, when Trudeau’s Liberals took a surprising 40 of Quebec’s 78 seats, they posted their worst result in the province — just 18.4 per cent — in Lac-Saint-Jean.

With most polls reporting, Hébert has scored 38 per cent, more than 10 percentage points ahead of the Conservatives’ Rémy Leclerc and Bloc Québécois’ Marc Maltais in a tight race for second place. The NDP’s Gisèle Dallaire, who finished a close second behind Lebel in 2015, is running a distant fourth.

The Conservatives have held onto another long-time Tory riding, however; Dane Lloyd has easily won a byelection in the Edmonton riding of Sturgeon River-Parkland with 77 per cent of the vote. The riding is prime Conservative turf, left vacant after former cabinet minister and interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose quit politics to join a Washington-based think tank.