Mark Carney’s Liberal Party has secured a minority government.
At time of writing (1:45 a.m. ET), the Liberals racked up 167 seats — just five short of a majority — representing a stunning comeback victory for the party that began the year in the ditch.
Carney said the country needs big changes backed by the values of humility, ambition and unity.
“Values I will do my best to uphold every day,” he said. He committed to working with cabinet, opposition parties, Indigenous nations, unions and business to advance nation building projects.
“America wants our land, our resources, our water and our country,” he said. “These are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so America can own us.”
Throughout Canadian history he said there have been turning points, from World War 2 to the end of the Cold War, but the country now faces a new hinge point. The relationship of steady integration with the United States is over, calling it both a tragedy and a new reality.
“We have to look out for ourselves, and above all we have to take care of each other,” he said, acknowledging Canadians will likely have to sacrifice in the months ahead.
Beyond the Liberal victory, the results of Monday’s election reveal a country effectively split down the middle — at least for the time being. The Conservatives secured a strong opposition of 145 seats, although leader Pierre Poilievre appears to have lost his seat, based on the returns available at press time.
Poilievre has held his Carleton riding since 2004, and after more than 20 years spent climbing to leadership in the Conservative Party, he managed to fumble a 20 point lead in just a few months. It’s difficult to imagine a bigger loss for any individual candidate in modern Canadian history.
At 1:00AM, Poilievre told supporters he could not be more proud of the opportunity Canadians have given him and his wife and committed to staying on as leader.
“It will be an honour to continue to fight for you,” he said. Supporters launched into a chant of “bring it home.”
“We know that change is needed, but change is hard to come by,” he said. “We have to learn the lessons of tonight.”
Canadians have opted for a razor thin minority government, he said, characterizing it as a virtual tie. He congratulated Carney as supporters booed and said he would work with the Liberals to secure a new trade deal with the United States.
One of the problems Poilievre will likely have to contend with in the coming weeks is that polling suggests the Conservative fall from its massive electoral lead can be laid directly at his feet. According to the Angus Reid Institute, this election was driven by the leaders rather than party preferences. If one stripped Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre out of the equation, Conservatives were leading Liberals by 12 points in pre-election polls.
That’s the brutal finding for Poilievre. His personal unlikability among most Canadians prevented the party from forming government.
The post-mortems will come, but as previously reported by Canada’s National Observer the national trends that defined this election were that since Justin Trudeau announced he would step down as prime minister and US President Donald Trump launched a trade war, support for the Liberals skyrocketed, while it almost entirely collapsed for the NDP. Conservative support largely held steady, but Poilierve was unable to make sufficient inroads with Canadians outside of his base.
Philippe Fournier, editor-in-chief of 338Canada, explained that pollsters began to see the trend at the end of January when politicians responded to Trump’s tariff and annexation threats. Trudeau said Canada wouldn’t stand for it, while Poilievre’s first response was to blame the Liberals for it, he said. Despite Poilievre changing his message to stand firmer against Trump, it was likely too late for the public.
“A lot of voters were turned off by this, because we saw the numbers change at that point,” Fournier said.
Martin Olszynski, an associate professor at the University of Calgary, told Canada’s National Observer the next federal government should attempt to reconcile relations between the two major parties — including on the natural resources file.
“This is still a compromise result,” he said. “It’s just got a slight bias toward reason and evidence as opposed to anger and populism.”
Speaking to supporters Monday night, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was emotional. He thanked his supporters and congratulated Carney on the win, but said his time as party leader is coming to a close.
“It’s been the honour of my life to represent the people of Burnaby South, but tonight they chose a new member of parliament,” he said.
Singh has led the party for the past eight years, and announced he will step down once an interim party leader is selected. In 2019, the NDP won 24 seats, in 2021 it won 25 seats, but on Monday it had collapsed to seven — losing official party status.
The Bloc managed to hold onto 23 seats, but it was a drop from the 32 it won in 2021.
The Green Party also dropped from two seats to one.
Catherine Abreu, a prominent Canadian climate advocate and member of Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body, called it jarring to see the results because it feels like a turn to a two-party system.
“The climate champion MPs elected tonight will be needed to push the government to do more and better, particularly if we can’t lean on opposition pressure to drive the climate conversation in the House,” she said. “There’s a vacuum of leadership on climate in this part of our hemisphere.”
“This government has an opportunity to step into that void on the world stage, in an era when climate has become a lynchpin issue in international relations, and Carney has a history of game-changing work in this arena.”
International climate experts were quick to weigh in.
Harjeet Singh, an international climate activist and founding director of Satat Sampada Climate Foundation in India, said if Carney wants to build a lasting legacy he’ll need more than rhetoric.
“The continued expansion of fossil fuels on Canadian soil stands fundamentally at odds with any claim to climate responsibility,” he said. “If Mr. Carney hopes to build a lasting legacy, he must drive a decisive shift towards a managed, rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, underpinned by a just transition that safeguards workers and communities.”
"As Canada chairs and hosts the G7, Mr. Carney must summon the political courage to champion bold global climate action — starting at home by rejecting new oil and gas projects and urging other G7 nations to dramatically scale up public climate finance to support developing countries in deploying renewable energy and addressing escalating climate impacts."
Mark Carney’s Liberal Party is set to form the next federal government.
The Liberal win, called by major news networks, is consistent with polls but represents a stunning turnaround from just a few months ago.
At time of writing, Liberals are leading in 157 ridings, compared to 130 ridings for the Conservatives. The Bloc is trailing at 23 seats, while the NDP is looking at eight.
Experts trace the expected Liberal win in large part to the collapse of the NDP and the threat of US President Donald Trump.
“It suggests that the fear of Trump was mobilizing for the Liberals, perhaps soft conservatives, but not very much for New Democrats and the Bloc,” said Jonathan Rose, a political studies professor at Queen’s University.
"This election has marked a u-turn for the Liberals from being down and out to the bulwark of Canadian sovereignty," he said. "This astonishing transformation reinforces the Liberals as the chameleon of political parties."
Beyond how many seats each party wins, questions remain over the future of opposition leaders.
According to polling firm Angus Reid, this campaign has been driven by the leaders rather than party preferences. If one strips Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre out of the equation, Conservatives would have been leading Liberals by 12 points.
That’s a brutal finding for Poilievre — and Carney’s win surely rubs salt in that wound.
Under Poilievre’s leadership, he used the consumer carbon price like a crowbar, dismantling the supply and confidence agreement between the NDP and Liberals as he poisoned the well against the emission reduction policy. And that tactic had been extraordinarily successful — until it wasn’t. At the start of the year his party enjoyed a commanding lead that seemed all but insurmountable until Justin Trudeau stepped down and Trump ratcheted up his attacks. Against that backdrop, Poilievre fumbled the lead and what appeared to be a likely majority government for his party.
Will he hang on as leader? It depends how commanding the Liberal win turns out to be, says Asa McKercher, associate professor at St. Francis Xavier University.
“If it’s a Liberal minority, especially a slim one and with a high popular vote, then I think he stays on,” he said.
Catherine Abreu, a prominent Canadian climate advocate and member of Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body, says the question for Carney now that he’s been elected to lead the country is if he will deliver on his climate and economic bona fides.
“So far he’s missed the opportunity to change the conversation on climate, both before and during the election,” she said. “Instead, he accepted the framing of climate action being expensive, missed the chance to trumpet the economic and jobs benefits of a real transition, and promised to build more pipelines.”
But he also understands the climate issue better than many world leaders, she said.
“If anyone can yank Canada into a modern approach to economic planning that makes use of fiscal policy and financial regulation, along with well designed incentives, to take success in the growing global clean economy, it’s him,” she said.
Results from Atlantic Canada are starting to pour in.
So far, Mark Carney’s Liberal Party is underperforming which could be a bellwether for the Grits tonight.
There will be no clean sweep in Atlantic Canada for the Liberals. Conservative Clifford Small, MP for Central Newfoundland, was the first to be elected for the Tories. Conservatives made significant gains across the region — although Liberals are still projected to lead.
At time of writing, Liberals are leading in 22 ridings, compared to 10 for the Conservatives. The Bloc so far is sitting at one riding.
One Liberal insider says the party was hoping for better results. While not catastrophic, they’re not great.
“Lots of nervous Liberals right now; they thought they'd sweep Atlantic Canada,” Don Desserud, political science professor at the University of Prince Edward Island tells Canada's National Observer. “But until the advanced polls are counted, these results should be looked at with caution.”
“Popular vote totals are interesting,” he added. “Usually we speak about inefficient distribution of votes hurting the CPC, but this time it might be hurting the Liberals.”
A decade ago, when Justin Trudeau came to power his party swept Atlantic Canada entirely. But over the years, the Atlantic region did not stick with him. In 2021, Liberals won the most seats in Atlantic Canada, but Conservatives picked up seats in New Brunswick (4), Nova Scotia (3) and Newfoundland and Labrador (1) pointing to it becoming a battleground.
Since the last election, Atlantic Canada became a thorn in Trudeau’s side as the consumer carbon price came under fire.
In October 2023, after months of pressure from the Liberals’ Atlantic caucus publicly criticizing the consumer carbon price, Trudeau carved out exemptions for home heating oil which is predominantly used in Atlantic Canada. The move was an attempt to stop a backbench revolt as Atlantic MP’s feared they would lose their seats, but it opened the floodgates as other regions of the country sought their own exemptions. It was the beginning of the end for the policy that eventually dragged Trudeau down with it.
Polls first revealed the extent of Trudeau’s unpopularity in Atlantic Canada in the summer of 2023. The Liberals had generally been the preferred party for people in the region since the last election, but that summer it flipped and Conservatives enjoyed a significant polling lead until Mark Carney took the helm of the Liberals in February.
Climate change may not have been a major priority for voters, at least based on polls, but energy and resource projects certainly played a significant role in the national debate. In Newfoundland and Labrador in particular, the future of oil is especially important.
Poilievre pitched doubling offshore oil production in NL — a position wildly at odds with climate science, but in line with the Liberal provincial government.
Despite its importance, energy and climate policies didn’t end up playing a significant role in the region, said Russell Williams, an associate professor at Memorial University.
“Carney’s tack to the right, cancelling the carbon tax, have really brought federal and provincial liberals back into line in Atlantic Canada,” he said.
“Atlantic Canada likes a more conservative Liberal Party and a more liberal Conservative Party,” he said. “The election issue in the region is really that Conservatives haven’t got that memo.”
Poilievre’s choice to lean into culture war issues was too Trumpian for many Atlantic voters, especially after the US president was re-elected, he said.
This federal election has been dominated by the question of which leader Canadians believe to be best equipped to deal with US President Donald Trump. On Monday, as voters headed to the polls, the president seemingly couldn’t help himself from weighing in and repeated his claim Canada should be the 51st state. After a whirlwind campaign, tonight we’ll find out who Canadians choose to deal with him.
Here are some of the themes we’re watching for tonight.
Will the momentum Liberal Leader Mark Carney has built translate into a majority government? Can Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pull off a stunning upset after a campaign that has seen him struggle to connect with Canadians outside of his base?
What will happen to the NDP and its leader, Jagmeet Singh? Polls show the party is on the verge of collapse, losing its status as an official party in the House of Commons. If it hopes to have any influence approaching the levels it had in the past parliament, the NDP will need to outperform expectations — a high bar given some polling suggests Singh could lose his own seat.
We’ll also keep tabs on the Bloc Québécois and Green Party. In Quebec, the Bloc could play a spoiler for the Liberals. And for the Greens, the major questions at hand are, will co-leader Jonathan Pedneault win a seat? Will co-leader Elizabeth May keep hers? And Green MP Mike Morrice, whose 2021 win represented a breakthrough for the party in Kitchener, may be a bellwether for the small party.
Here was the landscape on election day.
According to the Angus Reid Institute, advanced voters leaned heavily Liberal while vote intention today is evenly split between the Grits and Tories. Notably, according to the polling firm, is this campaign has been driven by the leaders rather than party preferences. If one strips Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre out of the equation, Conservatives would be leading Liberals by 12 points.
That’s a brutal finding for Poilievre. Under his leadership, he used the consumer carbon price like a crowbar, dismantling the supply and confidence agreement between the NDP and Liberals as he poisoned the well against the emission reduction policy. And that tactic had been extraordinarily successful. At the start of the year his party enjoyed a commanding lead that seemed all but insurmountable until Justin Trudeau stepped down and Trump ratcheted up his attacks. Against that backdrop, Poilievre fumbled the lead and polls suggest the public’s distaste for him has sunk what appeared to be a likely majority government for his party. Some reporting even suggests Poilievre is at risk of losing the seat he’s held for over 20 years.
Comments
This is a great opportunity to invite the seven NDP MPs into a full coalition government with the Liberals. The NDP hold a slim balance of power and have had long experience in minority governments, and have been directly responsible for Canada's most significant social programs. PM Mark Carney has stated repeatedly that he supports all of the new programs enacted by NDP influence recently, pharmacare, child care, dental care, etc., and to expand them.
I suggest NDP members in cabinet will do very well, especially with healthcare and housing. Carney's housing plan is very ambitious. I wonder if he'd be willing to ask an NDP MP run the program and manage the ministry?
There are two very good results from this election. First, the Conservatives were denied power. Poilievre even lost his seat. The CPC will probably splinter into moderates and Maple Magas. It's hard to see the MAGA faction getting stronger when the population just rejected Trump as an influencer.
Second, we now have a very respected economic leader who can help reorient Canada away from the USA and whose Build Baby Build mantra is the right thing for tough economic times.
Lastly, it's also hard to figure how pipelines and O&G infrastructure will play any kind of important role when the NDP and BQ are needed to approve policy. I don't see either party being anything but but totally supportive of renewables, energy efficiency, deep climate action and Indigenous owned clean energy projects. The biggest challenge would be to figure out how Alberta should be treated without their Holy Grail of carbon. There are Liberal and NDP MPs elected in Alberta who could make a big contribution. Quebec will no doubt receive a lot of attention by Carney because of their electoral support. This is where the BQ can make a positive contribution.
In several respects this emerging Liberal minority government with an ambitious agenda is better than an outright majority. Let the negotiations begin.