Prime Minister Mark Carney requested dissolution on March 23, 2025, triggering a 36-day campaign — the minimum allowed under the Canada Elections Act — with voting day set for April 28. Carney had been prime minister for barely two weeks, having been sworn in on March 14 after winning the Liberal leadership on March 9 with over 85% of first-preference votes. He had entered politics only after Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as Liberal leader and prime minister on January 6, 2025, amid a political crisis that had seen the Liberals trailing the Conservatives by roughly 25 points in polls. This was the 45th Canadian general election and the first fought under the 2022 redistribution, which expanded the House of Commons from 338 to 343 seats based on the 2021 census. Turnout reached 69.5% of eligible voters, the highest since 1993.

Results

The Liberals won 169 seats with 43.8% of the popular vote — the highest single-party vote share since Brian Mulroney's 1984 landslide — but fell three seats short of the 172 needed for a majority, forming the third consecutive Liberal minority government. The Conservatives won 144 seats with 41.3%, making it the first election since 1930 in which both major parties exceeded 40% of the vote. Over 85% of all ballots were cast for the top two parties, the most concentrated two-party vote since 1958. The Bloc Québécois won 22 seats, down from 32 in 2021, with approximately 6.3% nationally and 27.7% in Quebec. The NDP collapsed to 7 seats with 6.3% — the worst result in the party's history — losing official party status for the first time since 1993. The Green Party won a single seat with approximately 1.2% of the vote.

Geographically, the Liberals dominated Ontario with roughly 69 of 122 seats, swept Atlantic Canada with approximately 23 of 32 seats, and won 44 of 78 Quebec seats. In Western Canada, the Liberals won 20 of 43 British Columbia seats — their best showing in the province in years — 6 of 15 in Manitoba, 2 in Alberta, and 1 in Saskatchewan. The Conservatives swept the Prairies, taking 34 of 37 Alberta seats and approximately 13 of 14 in Saskatchewan, while remaining competitive in suburban Ontario and British Columbia.

Party Leaders

Mark Carney (Liberal) became the first prime minister in Canadian history to take office without ever having held elected office. Born March 16, 1965, in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Carney earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Harvard University in 1988 before completing a Master of Philosophy in economics at St Peter's College, Oxford, and a Doctor of Philosophy in economics at Nuffield College, Oxford. He spent thirteen years at Goldman Sachs, working in offices across London, New York, Tokyo, and Toronto, before joining the Bank of Canada in 2003 as deputy governor. He was appointed Governor of the Bank of Canada in 2008, guiding the country through the global financial crisis, and in 2013 became Governor of the Bank of England — the first non-British citizen ever to hold the position. After leaving the Bank of England in 2020, he served as United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. When Trudeau resigned in January 2025, Carney entered the Liberal leadership race and won overwhelmingly on March 9. He was elected in Nepean, a suburban Ottawa riding.

Pierre Poilievre (Conservative) suffered one of the most stunning reversals in modern Canadian political history, watching a 25-point polling lead evaporate in a matter of weeks. Born June 3, 1979, in Calgary, Alberta, and adopted by schoolteachers Marlene and Donald Poilievre, he was raised in the Ottawa area and earned a Bachelor of Arts in international relations from the University of Calgary. He first won election in 2004 in the riding of Nepean-Carleton at the age of 25, served as Minister of Employment under Stephen Harper, and was elected Conservative leader on September 10, 2022, with a first-ballot landslide. His "Axe the Tax" campaign against the carbon tax had dominated Canadian politics for two years, but the Trump tariff crisis of early 2025 reframed the election around economic sovereignty and international experience — terrain where Carney held a decisive advantage. Poilievre lost his own riding of Carleton, falling to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy by approximately 4,300 votes — the first Conservative leader to lose their seat since Kim Campbell in 1993. He later won a by-election in Battle River-Crowfoot on August 18 to become Leader of the Official Opposition.

Jagmeet Singh (NDP) led the party to its worst-ever result before resigning on election night. Born January 2, 1979, in Scarborough, Ontario, to Punjabi immigrant parents, Singh earned a Bachelor of Science from Western University and a Juris Doctor from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. He practised criminal defence law before winning a seat in the Ontario legislature in 2011 and was elected NDP leader on October 1, 2017. After supporting the Liberals through a supply-and-confidence agreement from 2022 to 2025, Singh's party was squeezed between Liberal and Conservative polarization. He lost his own riding of Burnaby Central, finishing third, and resigned as leader on election night.

Yves-François Blanchet (Bloc Québécois) held his seat but saw the party's influence diminish. Born April 16, 1965, in Drummondville, Quebec, Blanchet earned a Bachelor of Arts in history and anthropology from the Université de Montréal before spending decades in Quebec's music industry as an artist manager and president of the Quebec music industry association ADISQ. He served as a Parti Québécois MNA from 2008 to 2014, holding the environment portfolio, before winning the Bloc leadership unopposed in January 2019. The Bloc's drop from 32 to 22 seats reflected the two-party squeeze that defined the election, with Liberal gains in the Montreal suburbs and Québec City region eroding the party's 2021 gains. Blanchet was re-elected in Beloeil-Chambly.

Elizabeth May (Green) remained the party's sole parliamentary presence. May and co-leader Jonathan Pedneault had adopted a co-leadership model ratified in February 2025, but Pedneault lost in Outremont and resigned as co-leader after the election. May won her fifth consecutive term in Saanich-Gulf Islands with approximately 40% of the vote. The party's national vote share of roughly 1.2% was its lowest since 2000.

Campaign Issues

The Trump tariff crisis overwhelmed all other issues and fundamentally reshaped the election. United States President Donald Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Canadian goods, accused Canada of enabling fentanyl trafficking, and repeatedly suggested Canada should become the "51st state." The provocations triggered a wave of Canadian nationalism that reversed the political landscape almost overnight. Carney positioned himself as the experienced economic leader uniquely qualified to navigate the trade war — a former central banker who had guided two countries through financial crises — while Poilievre's earlier posture toward Trump became a liability.

The cost of living and housing affordability, which had driven the Conservatives' polling dominance through 2024, were subsumed by the tariff crisis. Poilievre's signature "Axe the Tax" campaign lost its potency after Carney reduced the consumer carbon tax to zero on April 1, 2025, pre-empting the Conservatives' central policy promise. The industrial carbon tax remained in place, but the consumer-facing levy that had fuelled Conservative rallies for two years vanished as a ballot-box issue.

Canada-U.S. relations and national sovereignty became the election's defining frame. The campaign was widely characterized internationally as a referendum on Trump's treatment of Canada, with Carney's campaign framing the choice as sovereignty versus acquiescence.

Notable Outcomes

The twin leader defeats were the election's most dramatic results. Poilievre's loss in Carleton — a riding he had held under various names since 2004 — and Singh's third-place finish in Burnaby Central marked only the second time in Canadian history that two major party leaders lost their own seats in the same election. Maxime Bernier of the People's Party also lost in Beauce, finishing fourth.

The NDP's collapse to 7 seats and loss of official party status represented an existential crisis for Canada's traditional third party. Among the surviving NDP members were Heather McPherson in Edmonton Strathcona and Don Davies in Vancouver Kingsway, who held on by just 310 votes.

One seat in Terrebonne was decided by a single vote — a Liberal victory that underscored how close the party came to an even weaker minority. The election confirmed a dramatic realignment of Canadian politics around a two-party axis, with the Liberals and Conservatives together commanding over 85% of the vote for the first time in nearly seven decades.