Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion says the results in two of the four ridings in Monday night's byelections, in which the party squeaked out a close battle and lost one contest, may be different in a general election.

Although the Liberals hung on to three of their four ridings, the results were mixed.

Star Liberal candidates Bob Rae and Martha Hall Findlay, who had both contended for the party leadership, earned long-awaited seats in the House of Commons after handily winning their Toronto ridings, seats that were considered Liberal strongholds.

But in Vancouver Quadra, Liberal Joyce Murray, a former B.C. cabinet minister, narrowly defeated Conservative Deborah Meredith, taking the riding by 151 votes. Liberal support appeared to have gone primarily to the Green party, which almost tripled its vote to about 13.5 per cent.

Conservative Rob Clarke beat Liberal Joan Beatty, Dion's handpicked candidate in the Saskatchewan riding of Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River. Clarke captured about 48 per cent of the vote to her 31 per cent.

Dion welcomes Green 'challenge'

In a news conference, Dion acknowledged the Green party's gains in Vancouver Quadra.

"It took a lot of our vote. And to me it's a very welcome challenge. It's for us to show that the best way to be green at the next general election will be to vote red."

While Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has shared a friendly relationship with Dion, she rejected the idea that a vote for the environment is a vote for the Liberals. 

"My message is if you want to vote green it's easy, you vote green. And it's going to be difficult going forward and I can see that out of his comments," she said.

As for Saskatchewan, Dion said the low turnout hurt the party's results, adding that the native vote is usually more Liberal but traditionally more difficult to mobilize.

"I'm very confident next time we'll have a Liberal MP there," he said.

"We'll be in a better position to put forward our arguments in a general election. We're very disappointed by the results of course, but we're still just as determined for the general election."

Dion downplayed the notion that Monday night's victories meant the country was heading to an election soon.

"We're always ready for an election, but we'll choose our time. Our priority is to be sure that this government will be kept accountable and that Parliament will work."

Rae, who came in third in the 2006 Liberal leadership race, said Monday's vote will allow the Liberals to build a "progressive coalition" of social democrats, environmentalists, and even Progressive Conservatives, some of whom he said voted for him and Findlay in the byelection.

He said his party's decision not to invoke an election over the budget or Canada's role in Afghanistan was an exercise in "strategic patience," which Rae, the former premier of Ontario, said he has supported.

"We don't have the luxury, in my view, of dividing votes.… We have to find an effective coalition that is actually going to defeat and replace the Harper government — that's the challenge in the next election, whenever it comes," he told CBC News.

Conservative candidate Rob Clarke, who beat his rival Joan Beatty after she was handpicked by Dion to run in the riding of Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River in Saskatchewan, told CBC News that he is ready to run in a federal election whenever one is called.

Campaigning door-to-door in -53 C temperatures "shows how determined I was to get recognized, and that I'm not scared to do the hard work and beat the road and shake the hands," said the self-described "small-town cop."

"This was a Conservative party victory. We had everyone involved, right from the prime minister all the way to the grassroots people, the volunteers. Overall, it was very successful," said Clarke, a sergeant with the RCMP.

Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, who campaigned with Clarke in the northern Saskatchewan riding, said that Monday's byelection served as proof that the Liberals would not survive a nationwide run at the polls.

"I think a lot of what Rob heard on the doorsteps, and I heard too up there, was that people are happy with what we're doing, they're happy with the direction and the vision of the prime minister of the day," Ritz said.

"I think we're getting a lot of credit out there for the work we're doing as a government, but having said that, if the Opposition want to bring us down and go to the campaign, we're ready to do that."