The 2025 Canadian election resulted in a minority Liberal government led by Mark Carney, a former central banker. While the Liberals won the most seats, they fell short of a majority. The Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, secured a significant share of the popular vote but not enough seats to form government. The Bloc Québécois remained the third-largest party, while the NDP lost official party status and its leader, Jagmeet Singh, lost his seat.
Carney's next steps involve forming a new cabinet, recalling Parliament, and initiating trade talks with the United States, addressing issues like the Canada-U.S. tariff war. Other key priorities include tax cuts, navigating the carbon pricing policy, and implementing the Build Canada Homes program.
International leaders responded positively to Carney's victory, emphasizing their strong ties with Canada, while US President Donald Trump's reaction remains uncertain.
While polls largely predicted the surge in support for the Liberals and Conservatives, they underestimated the NDP's decline.
Voter turnout was higher than in recent campaigns but did not reach record levels.
To win a majority in this election, a party needed at least 172 seats in the House. None succeeded on Monday night, but the Liberals came closer to the mark than they were under Justin Trudeau, whose resignation made way for Mark Carney to become Prime Minister.
The Canada-U.S. tariff war and President Donald Trump’s annexation rhetoric propelled most federalist voters to the Liberals – who peeled away crucial Quebec ridings from the Bloc, but faced disappointment in Ontario’s 905 region – or the Conservatives, who got their biggest share of the popular vote since Stephen Harper’s era, but could not translate that into enough seats.
The fate of the Liberal, Conservative and NDP leaders’ ridings tells us a lot about how the election went overall. Mr. Carney, who had never held elected office before, and Pierre Poilievre, an MP for more than 20 years, ran in neighbouring parts of suburban Ottawa. Whereas Nepean voters turned out comfortably for Mr. Carney, Carleton voters are projected to replace Mr. Poilievre with Bruce Fanjoy, a Liberal. And far to the west, in Burnaby Central, Jagmeet Singh fell to a distant third behind the Liberal and Conservative challengers, losing the seat before he pledged to step down as NDP leader.
Public opinion polls, including Nanos Research’s findings for The Globe and Mail, more or less accurately anticipated the surge in support for the Liberals and Conservatives, but some misjudged how deeply the New Democrats would lose. “The NDP are about to hit a historic low in popular support never seen before,” chief data scientist Nik Nanos said, adding that the drops in New Democrat and Bloc support were within his pollsters’ margin of error.
Elections Canada’s turnout figures are preliminary, but overall, as experts expected, they do not break records in the way that advance polls did over the Easter weekend. Turnout is higher than recent campaigns, but it would have had to reach 75.3 per cent to match the consequential elections of 1984 and 1988, which, like this one, centred on Canada-U.S. relations and trade.
Implementing Mr. Carney’s agenda will be a delicate process in a Parliament where the Liberals need help to govern, but their usual federalist partners, the New Democrats, are in no shape to offer it. Here’s what we can expect within the next two weeks:
Once Parliament returns, a Throne Speech will set out what the Liberals plan to do first. Trade and the economy are among the top issues for the next government to address, but not the only ones.
Mr. Trump shared more of his “51st state” rhetoric on Truth Social while polls were open on Monday, but it’s anyone’s guess what he will say or do about the new government now that it’s been chosen. Leaders in Europe and Australia were first to respond to Mr. Carney’s victory, congratulating him and underlining their countries’ ties with Canada.
Compiled by Globe staff
With reports from Bill Curry, Stephanie Levitz, Robert Fife, Steven Chase, Marie Woolf, Eric Andrew-Gee and Paul Waldie
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