Liberals Secure Fourth Consecutive Mandate
Conservatives Given Strong Opposition Mandate with More Seats than Expected
Amid the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the federal election saw Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre battle it out until the very last ballots were counted. The Liberals won a hard-fought fourth mandate but as the election results showed, voters are divided on what worries them most – is it protecting Canada’s economy amidst the threats from south of the border or the need for change and making life more affordable?
The answer that Canadians delivered is that both questions resonate. The task ahead for Prime Minister Carney is to keep this result in mind. Fear over what will happen given the threats from President Trump carried the day for the Liberals, but affordability and change were on the ballot for almost as many.
The Liberals secured their minority government (with 168 seats at the time of writing) with a relatively smooth campaign helped by the collapse of the NDP from 25 seats to 7 seats and decline in support for the Bloc Québecois. Many of these votes landed in the Carney camp but some were shared with Poilievre’s Conservatives, who secured 144 seats (at the time of writing).
After being down by over 20 points to the Conservatives in the polls at the end of 2024, the Liberals completed an improbable comeback. Their 43.5 per cent of the popular vote represents a significant 11 per cent increase from the 2021 election result.
Despite the Liberal victory and losing his seat in Carleton, Poilievre and the CPC made significant gains with an increase of more than 15 seats over their 2021 election result and won 41.4 per cent of the popular vote. For reference, Stephen Harper won a majority government in 2011 with 39 per cent of the vote.
In any other election, having a popular vote of over 40 per cent would have secured a majority government for either team but given the NDP and Bloc’s decline in support, this election was a two-way race to the end.
At the time of writing, the election results are as follows:
LPC 169 – CPC 144 – BQ 22 – NDP 7 – GPC 1
What is next for the Liberals?
It’s anticipated that the Liberals will move swiftly to return to governing. The next step is for Carney to, once again, form a new cabinet. We are expecting that the cabinet will remain close to the slimmed down 24 ministerial portfolios Carney created shortly before the election call. How many new faces make it into the new cabinet remains an open question.
Several star candidates have a significant chance of joining the cabinet due to a variety of factors, including regional representation, previous political experience, and relationships with the prime minster. Potential new ministers could include:
Immediate challenges for Carney
The Prime Minister faces a few key immediate challenges, including the continued threat of international trade actions, the need to pass a budget, and a June 2025 G7 meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta.
Given the need for immediate action, it is expected that the House of Commons will return by mid-May, and a budget will be tabled by the end of the month. According to the parliamentary calendar, the House is still expected to rise on June 20th. A budget was created by the Liberals and the Finance department earlier this year and the civil service will be ready to amend the document, as required, to align with the new government’s priorities.
Trade negotiations with the U.S. to begin
After speaking to President Trump on March 28, Carney indicated that Canada and the U.S. could begin comprehensive negotiations regarding a “new economic and security relationship immediately following the election.” With both Trump and Carney having referred to this commitment following their call during the campaign, it is expected that Carney will meet with President Trump soon.
Conservatives make significant gains, but not enough
Ultimately, the outcome of this election for the CPC comes down to three things. Trudeau, Trump, and timing.
For much of Poilievre’s tenure as leader, Trudeau was a lightning rod driving support to the CPC as Canadians wanted change in Ottawa and the cost-of-living crisis worsened. The Conservatives’ ability to respond to these issues with concrete policies boosted their pre-election support to unprecedented numbers.
After winning the Liberal leadership, Carney moved swiftly to address these fundamental concerns, bringing the party back to the centre on policy and effectively eliminating many previous Conservative wedge issues. He cancelled the consumer carbon tax and the capital gains increase imposed by the Trudeau Liberals. But Carney also used his resume to position himself as the man most able to defend Canada during a crisis. For 43.5 per cent of voters, this was enough to keep them voting Liberal or move them into the Liberal camp.
After having a majority government in its sights for almost 2 years, there will undoubtedly be questions for the Conservative leader and his team about how this substantial lead in the polls was so quickly erased. There is also the more immediate question of who will lead the Conservatives in the House of Commons until Poilievre obtains a new seat through a by-election. To have a by-election, someone in his caucus will have to resign their seat and Poilievre will have to win it.
Eventually, at the next party convention, there will be a leadership review and a vote. Given Poilievre’s strong showing both in terms of seats and the popular vote, it is likely he remains as leader, but this is not a certainty.
Bloc remains the third party despite losing seats
The last six months have been a polling roller coaster for the Bloc Québécois (BQ). After being in a position to repeat its 1993 feat of forming the Official Opposition in the House of Commons at the end of 2024, polls had the BQ losing more than half its seats at the start of April 2025.
A respectable performance by Yves-François Blanchet in the debates, combined with a slight increase in the polls in the closing weeks of the campaign, ultimately helped save some of their seats. In the end, the Bloc managed to win 22 seats, down from 33. The chief beneficiary of the BQ’s decline were the Liberals, who surged beyond 42 per cent of the popular vote in Quebec, picking up several ridings that were key to their overall electoral success.
Jagmeet Singh loses his riding, NDP lose Official Party Status
In 2021, the NDP won nearly 18 per cent of the popular vote, including 24 per cent of the vote in British Columbia, where they held nearly half of their twenty-five seats at dissolution. The result in this election was a loss of more than half of its popular support, plunging to 6.3 per cent of the popular vote, and 13.2 per cent in BC.
The NDP have been reduced to 7 seats, short of the twelve-seat threshold to attain official party status. Jagmeet Singh lost his seat in Burnaby Central to the Liberals and stepped down as leader.
The loss of Singh’s seat is indicative of the NDP’s misfortunes in this election. Some NDP voters did not want Poilievre to win and therefore voted strategically for Carney. However, in B.C. and across the country, Poilievre’s strong messaging on affordability resonated with many union members and their leaders, further eroding the popular support for the party.
The NDP will have some soul searching to do as they select a new leader and determine whether they remain the progressive alternative focused on taking on the wealthy as their core message, or if they return to the worker-focused, centre-left value proposition of the Layton era which led them to forming the Official Opposition.