Live Commentary
6:57am Wednesday The Liberals will hold a minority government after winning 169 of the 343 seats, three short of a majority. The Conservatives won 144 seats, the BQ 22, the NDP seven and the Greens one. National vote shares were 43.7% Liberals, 41.3% Conservatives, 6.3% BQ, 6.3% NDP 1.3% Greens and just 0.7% for the far-right People’s.
9:06pm There are still special ballots remaining to be counted, which are cast by mail by voters who will be away from their home divisions on election day. I expect these to favour the Liberals just like absent votes favour Labor in Aus. Counting will resume at 11:30pm AEST tonight. On current figures, the Liberals will be just short of a majority of seats. They’ve won or are leading in 168 (172 is needed for a majority). Poilievre lost his seat.
5:33pm NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has announced he will resign. The Liberals won Singh’s seat.
4:25pm I’ve done a write-up for The Conversation on the Canadian results, and also covered Trump’s slumping US ratings. Tory leader Pierre Poilievre is looking gone in his own seat of Carleton.
2:57pm Tory leader Pierre Poilievre is trailing the Libs by 51.6-45.1 in his own seat of Carleton with 145 of 266 booths in.
2:47pm The Tories have made a number of gains in British Columbia from the collapse of the NDP vote as it hasn’t all gone to the Libs in NDP-held seats.
1:52pm The Tories have gained Windsor West from the NDP because the Lib surge meant the anti-Tory vote in that seat was split between the Libs and NDP.
1:45pm The Liberals have won or are leading in 163 seats, the Tories in 147, the BQ in 24, the NDP in 10 and the Greens in one. Popular votes are 42.6% Libs to 41.7% Tories, 7.9% BQ and 5.4% NDP. With such a high two-party share, the smaller parties are doing well to win as many seats as they are. It looks as if the Lib vote was not as efficiently distributed as in 2021, as I predicted.
1:02pm The CBC’s results are back. The Libs lead by 44.0-40.9 on popular votes with 8% for the BQ and 4.9% NDP. Seats are 159 Libs, 143 Tories, 24 BQ, 10 NDP and one Green. On current counts, the Libs will be short of a majority.
12:40pm With some results from 319 of the 343 seats, it’s 158 Libs, 130 Tories, 23 BQ and eight NDP. If this holds, it wouldn’t quite be a majority for the Libs.
12:27pm CTV News results has the Libs leading or elected in 146 seats, the Tories in 113, the BQ in 24 and the NDP in five.
12:20pm The CBC’s results site has crashed! But they project the Liberals will form the next government, no projection yet for whether it’s minority or majority.
12:07pm The Libs are leading the seat count now by 108-79 with 16 BQ and 3 NDP. They lead the popular vote by 50.6-38.5. This is now looking like a Liberal landslide.
12:04pm The CBC has called a Lib GAIN from Tory in a Nova Scotia seat.
11:58am So far in Ontario, the most populous province with 121 seats, the Libs lead the Tories by 32-22 in seats although the Tories are leading on popular votes by 47.5-45.7. Rural booths are probably reporting first, so it’s likely there’s a pro-Tory bias in votes counted so far.
11:52am Libs leading in seats by 72-52 over Tories with 10 BQ and 1 NDP.
11:40am Libs now leading the seat count over the Tories by 37-26 on popular votes of 51.5-40.1. BQ leading in 12 seats and NDP in one.
11:29am With polls about to close in the large majority of Canada, Libs lead in seats by 22-10 and in popular votes by 52.2-40.4. Two Quebec seats were in Atlantic time and have reported results, with the BQ leading in both.
11:08am Liberal popular vote lead now just over ten points.
10:52am Liberals’ popular vote margin over the Tories up to eight points. I’ve read comments here from BTsays that pollsters had the Libs doing better with early votes than on election day. These votes won’t appear until later.
10:32am The CBC has called a GAIN for the Tories from the Libs in Long Range Mountain.
10:29am The Liberals are now leading the seat count by 22-9 and the vote count by 50-44. But they’re NOT 21 points ahead in Atlantic Canada.
10:06am The Liberals have now taken a three-point lead in popular votes.
10:01am The Liberals lead the Tories by 16 seats to 5, but the Tories lead in popular votes currently by 48-46. This isn’t looking like a 21-point Liberal popular vote margin in Atlantic Canada, but perhaps votes counted are mostly rural and/or the Liberals will do better once the pre-poll votes are counted.
9:44am In Newfoundland, the 2021 result was a Liberal win by 47.7-32.5 in popular votes over the Tories and the Liberals won six of the seven seats. Currently the Tories are leading by 52.1-42.5 in popular votes, although the Liberals are leading in four of the seven seats. Perhaps votes counted so far are more rural.
9:07am The first polls have closed in one of the small Atlantic provinces that’s 30 minutes ahead of the rest of Atl Can. The CBC results are here.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
Results for the Canadian federal election will be out today. First past the post is used to elect the 343 MPs, with 172 seats required for a majority. Polls in the 32 Atlantic Canada seats close by 9:30am AEST. At 11:30am AEST, the large majority of polls close simultaneously owing to staggered polling hours across three time zones. At 12pm AEST, the final polls close in British Columbia (43 seats).
Vote counting will initially be fast, but will slow down as election-day booths are exhausted, with the final booths being early voting centres, like in Australia. Elections Canada said 7.3 million had voted during the advance voting period from April 18-21, an increase of 25% from 2021. This represents about 25% of all eligible voters. Canadian media don’t attempt to use booth-matched results. Seat totals are reported as “won” (called for a candidate) and “leading”.
The CBC Poll Tracker was updated for the final time late Sunday (the last pre-election day), and it gives the governing centre-left Liberals 42.8% of the vote (up 0.5 since my previous Canadian article on Saturday), the Conservatives 39.2% (up 0.6), the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) 8.1% (down 0.5), the separatist left-wing Quebec Bloc (BQ) 6.0% (steady) (26.1% in Quebec), the Greens 1.8% (down 0.5) and the far-right People’s 1.3% (down 0.1).
Seat point estimates are 189 Liberals (down one since Saturday), 125 Conservatives (steady), 23 BQ (up one), five NDP (steady) and one Green (steady). The Tracker now gives the Liberals a 70% chance of a majority, down from 73% previously. They have a 19% chance to win the most seats but not a majority. The Conservatives have a 10% chance to win the most seats and just a 1% chance of a majority. The polls would need to be very wrong for this to occur.
The Liberal lead over the Conservatives in the Tracker has fallen from its peak of 7.1 points on April 8 to 3.6 points now. The most likely reason for this movement is that Mark Carney’s honeymoon from replacing Justin Trudeau on March 14 as Liberal leader and PM has faded.
On Saturday night, at least 11 people were killed when an SUV drove into a crowd of Filipinos in Vancouver. This was likely a racist attack against Filipinos, so it shouldn’t hurt the Liberals. In Liaison, Nanos and Forum polls conducted Sunday (one-day polls), the Liberal lead was respectively 2, 2.7 and 4 points.
Atlantic Canada has four low-population provinces, and the Liberals hold a 21-point lead over the Conservatives in this region in the Tracker. The early results from Atlantic Canada could give clues about how accurate the polls are.
The Liberal vote is more efficiently distributed than the Conservative vote owing to Conservative vote wastage in safe rural seats. At the 2021 election, the Liberals won 160 of the then 338 seats on 32.6%, with the Conservatives winning 119 seats on 33.7%.
However, there would have been many seats in 2021 where the Liberal’s margin was relatively low owing to a high NDP or BQ vote. With support for the NDP halved from 17.8% in 2021, the Liberal margin in these seats will increase, leading to more Liberal vote wastage and a less efficiently distributed vote.
UK local elections and a parliamentary by-election on Thursday
UK local government elections and aparliamentary by-election in Labour-held Runcorn and Helsby will be held on Thursday, with polls closing at 7am AEST Friday. I don’t expect results from the by-election for several hours after polls close. I previously covered these elections on April 19.
If Canada does bring in ranked-choice voting (as IMO they should), it’s probable that they’ll start with NSW-style Optional Preferential voting. Making it compulsory, as in the vote is informal if not all boxes are numbered might be a step too far, especially after the ridiculous 91-candidate ballot.
“If you have a combined Liberal, NDP and Green vote of 66% in a riding and get a Conservative MP that’s an absurd outcome.”
But you’re still making the same lazy assumptions!”
It’s not lazy to assume a big majority of Greens and NDP voters would prefer to see a Liberal and not a Conservative government.
It would be lazy to assume 100%, but that’s not what I’m doing.
If you want to make a case that a majority of NDP voters would actually favour the Conservatives, go do it.
@Kirsdarke:
“If Canada does bring in ranked-choice voting (as IMO they should), it’s probable that they’ll start with NSW-style Optional Preferential voting. Making it compulsory, as in the vote is informal if not all boxes are numbered might be a step too far, especially after the ridiculous 91-candidate ballot.”
This would be sensible.
The way their system is, especially with the Quebecers and with the proven ability of activists to stack ballots with ridiculous numbers of candidates, compulsory preferential might be a bridge too far. Optional Preferential is fine.
I just don’t understand countries like Canada and the UK that persist with FPTP, the stupidest system.
Arky @ #151 Tuesday, April 29th, 2025 – 3:57 pm
I recall reading a few polls raising that question, “Which party would you give your second preference to?” and roughly 40-50% of Liberal and NDP voters put the other party as their preference. All the rest were only about 15-25%. (Conservatives to NDP, Liberal to Conservative, etc). Around 30-50% would simply vote ‘1’ and let their votes exhaust if it came to that.
It’s poiliover
Ah, cool, I have the picture of the table saved. This is roughly how preferences would go in Canada, according to polling.
only 5 seats short of majority now. Gunna be close
Interesting comments on Quebec delivering the house to Carney and that they are not to be ignored – the WA of Canada?
CTV now has it up to 167 for Libs, 7 NDP (and one Green) vs 145 Con vs 23 Bloc Quebecois
Slightly more breathing room for a Lib + NDP minority government.
For actual voting percentages that’s something like 43.4 to Lib, 42 to CON, 6.7 to Bloc Quebecois, 6.1 to NDP, 1.1 to Greens and fuck all to others although might shift with late counting.
Several of the final published polls look extremely good. A few of them end up a little low for the Cons. Some mob called Ekos will probably have to give the game away with their insane Liberal lead of 10.5.
One noticeable foible is most of the polls had the minor conservative party PPC somewhere between 1 and 3% of the vote, presumably taking votes off the Cons – sorry if this is “lazy” to one commenter- but in reality they are on 0.5%. I suspect this played a part in some polls’ minor underestimate of the Cons, and might not be a polling failure so much as PPC voters being tactical in the booth when push came to shove and voting Con instead.
Thankyou Kirsdarke for providing the evidence that my lazy arse didn’t.
how many seats did the liberals start with….have they gained or lost ground?
“https://www.ctvnews.ca/federal-election-2025/article/this-was-the-conservatives-biggest-strategic-error-according-to-a-leading-strategist/”
This guy is suggesting the Conservatives’ real error was going so hard against Trudeau so far before the election that they actually got rid of him, and with him his personal unpopularity, before the election.
Geez where have I seen that before coughBILLSHORTENTONYABBOTTcough.
@Albanator – both Liberals and Cons have gained ground at the expense of NDP and Bloc Quebecois, albeit the Cons have gained more.
Started at Lib 152, Con 120, Bloc Quebecois 33, NDP 24, Greens 2.
Arky @ #155 Tuesday, April 29th, 2025 – 4:19 pm
The margin of error on a vote of between 1-3% is about 1%. So 0.5 isn’t so strange.
I found the following Canadian Party “interesting”
https://www.partyrhino.ca/en/
“. A party of ideas
Our lies surpass all the standards of ridicule of parliament”
“As we’re voting for clowns, choose the funniest!”
Sort of equivalent to the UK’s Monster Raving Loony Party or to Aus’ “Trumpet of Idiots” but more honest
“It’s not lazy to assume a big majority of Greens and NDP voters would prefer to see a Liberal and not a Conservative government.”
Yes it is. You’re transposing Australian politics onto Canadian politics. You need to dig a bit deeper into what’s actually happening with these votes – as I indicated earlier, many who voted Conservative in seats they won from NDP would not have voted for Liberal regardless of who they thought best placed to beat Conservative. Likewise the same would apply to many of the NDP voters who stayed with the NDP, no doubt in an Australian system they would have preferenced Conservative above Liberal.
In many places, notably Ontario, NDP swung much more to Conservative than Liberal. In other places, it was Liberal who gained from the NDP drop.
“Interesting comments on Quebec delivering the house to Carney and that they are not to be ignored – the WA of Canada?”
There’s no equivalent in Australia, there’s no serious threats of the secession of any states.
Quebec is more like the Scotland of the UK, or the Catalonia of Spain.
@BTSays – see Kirsdarke’s table above.
Also, I think you’re missing the likelihood that in places that NDP dropped but Conservative rose, there is some transfer of NDP to Liberal but Liberal to Conservative rather than direct votes going from NDP to Conservative.
“how many seats did the liberals start with….have they gained or lost ground?”
I think new boundaries etc (total no. of seats went up from 338 to 343) means that technically the parties had different starting points, but in 2021 it was:
Lib 160
Con 119
NDP 25
BQ 32
Green 2
TOTAL 338
“Also, I think you’re missing the likelihood that in places that NDP dropped but Conservative rose, there is some transfer of NDP to Liberal but Liberal to Conservative rather than direct votes going from NDP to Conservative.”
Yes that’s also a very fair point.
But it doesn’t change the fact that in those seats, Cons would still have won many of them in a 2PP system. It really varied a lot from region to region whatever polling or Kirsdarke’s table showed.
The MSM don’t like to call such major things too soon, but seriously, Poilievre has lost his riding of Carleton without doubt. There’s not enough polling places left to count, and recent additions haven’t helped his numbers anyway.
I also heard it mentioned on the Global News stream that the Conservatives went very well on the Ontario Peninsula to the south of Toronto, one of the areas most affected by Trump’s tariff threats.
BTSays @ #166 Tuesday, April 29th, 2025 – 4:38 pm
Add the PPC leader, one of the Greens leaders and most likely the NDP leader to the list of defeated party leaders
I’ve been working most of today, so I haven’t really had a chance to take in the results, yet. Looks like a Liberal minority government at this point.
Poilievre on track to losing his own seat is interesting. At first, I thought it might be the protest tablecloth ballot that’s the cause but most of those candidates got trivial amounts of votes and the Liberal candidate is currently sitting at 50%, so it’s not that.
Maybe the tablecloth made the prospect of voting for Poilievre harder because his name is lost in the mess but I don’t think that really explains such a drop. Also, I don’t know enough about the design of the ballot to comment. I honestly just think he’s losing the seat because the voters are rejecting him.
Singh also looks on track to lose his seat too. If that’s what it takes to get rid of him as leader, good. He’s been a terrible party leader who’s made questionable decisions and the federal party has remained stagnant under him (he mostly has cruised on the back of provincial level wins.) As I have previously said, the man is no Jack Layton.
“Add the PPC leader, one of the Greens leaders and most likely the NDP leader to the list of defeated party leaders”
Yes but PPC and Greens co-leader were only token candidates in their seats, not incumbents.
NDP leader absolutely thrashed. Only 18% of the vote in his riding and he was the incumbent.
“Maybe the tablecloth made the prospect of voting for Poilievre harder because his name is lost in the mess but I don’t think that really explains such a drop.”
I do think we will never know how many people never bothered voting because it was a hassle and they knew it would be, and assumed Poilievre would win so it would be ok.
Probably not enough to make the difference.
His vote share didn’t drop much (on 46.6% at this point), but when the Lib candidate hits 50% you can’t win 🙂
Ysack Dupont, a candidate in the riding of Carleton, has achieved the rare distinction of polling zero votes.
Mark Carney seems like a very solid bloke, so I think Canada made the right choice.
Probably good omens out of this for Albanese.
Conservative leader Mr Poilievre now over 3000 behind. Liberal candidate Mr Fanjoy currently on 52%. This electorate had a high turnout of 75% compared to about 64% (current reported figures) overall in Canada, so 91 candidates did not put people off voting there.
“Ysack Dupont, a candidate in the riding of Carleton, has achieved the rare distinction of polling zero votes.”
One for Martin.
Two for Martin.
According to twitter, he also got zero votes in a by-election last year.
So, considering they can’t recognise that Poilievre has lost his seat, I’m certain now that CBC does not know how analyse seats like ABC/other Australian journalists & psephologists do.
”
autocratsays:
Tuesday, April 29, 2025 at 4:42 pm
BTSays @ #166 Tuesday, April 29th, 2025 – 4:38 pm
The MSM don’t like to call such major things too soon, but seriously, Poilievre has lost his riding of Carleton without doubt. There’s not enough polling places left to count, and recent additions haven’t helped his numbers anyway.
Add the PPC leader, one of the Greens leaders and most likely the NDP leader to the list of defeated party leaders
”
All the leaders of previous term (including Trudeau) are no longer leaders
They probably have got the info & analysts all saying it’s done. But aren’t going to call it as lost when Poilievre hasn’t conceded the seat and it’s past 3am.
Wow. File this under #ETTD.
Trudeau made the right decision to resign, the Liberal party caucus made the right decision to elect Carney the party leader, and Canadians have done the right thing in giving the Liberals another term in office.
Outsider says:
Tuesday, April 29, 2025 at 5:05 pm
Ysack Dupont, a candidate in the riding of Carleton, has achieved the rare distinction of polling zero votes.
So he did not even vote for himself.
“So he did not even vote for himself.”
He’s a parachute candidate!
Poilievre is a goner.
Looks like the Greens only won 1 seat.
Is there a reason why all these seats are triple barrelled names instead of picking one, or using names like ours that (for many) aren’t directly related to the locales.
Ghost Of Whitlam @ #187 Tuesday, April 29th, 2025 – 5:55 pm
Canada seems to go by the UK tradition of naming seats directly related to the locales, which frequently change through redistribution.
I suppose that’s simpler to go by the Australian tradition of naming them after significant historical figures when we only have 150 seats to name while they have 343.
168 now the projection 30 seats still “in doubt” not sure which seat flipped but it was a Cons seat as BQ still looking at 23 NDP 7 and Greens 1 – Cons looking at 144
Kirsdarke @ #188 Tuesday, April 29th, 2025 – 5:29 pm
Australia probably has a lot more names in reserve that can be applied to seats, so I’m sure Canada has even more (and this is just talking about European settlement history. There’s quite an untapped well of indigenous names that could also be applied in both cases.)
“Liberal candidate Mr Fanjoy currently on 52%.”
50.2% not 52.0%
“All the leaders of previous term (including Trudeau) are no longer leaders”
Pierre Poilievre is.
Elizabeth May is still Greens co-leader (and she won her riding again).
Blanchet is still BQ leader (and won his riding again).
AFAIK, Maxime Bernier remains leader of PPC also.
So you might be a bit mistaken there. . . 🙂
I have said this before but I will say it again: while, at the time, it seemed like a baffling choice, Trudeau’s decision to call a snap election in 2021 actually turned out to be the best decision he could make, in terms of Liberal Government longevity. If he hadn’t called that pointless snap election, they’d have been going to the polls in 2023, when inflation was at its peak and Trump was still just sitting around in Mar-a-Lago. I have no doubt they would have been crushed by the Tories, even under O’Toole.
It was most likely a happy accident than an intentional decision but, in hindsight, it turned out to be a better decision than it was perceived as at the time.
Pierre Poilievre is gone. There is just not enough votes left for him to make up the 3,700 gap.
Interesting result in Kelowna, the Liberals leading by 170 votes.
Apparently that’s a big deal in Canada, as it was in 2015 when the Liberals won it. It’s meant to be somewhat like the Toowoomba of British Columbia – a solid Conservative inland city.
Thanks for your coverage Adrian.
I still can’t really believe the Liberals have won a fourth term when a few short months ago I was envisaging a total wipeout in the style of the Conservatives in 1993 when they went from a majority to two seats!
Wat Tyler
Good insight. It’s like I said in 2019 Labour in UK were crazy forcing that election (which Boris Johnson won easily) – if they hadn’t done that then the Tory minority government (likely under Truss or Sunak) would have faced an election in 2022 and Labour would probably have ended that Tory period two years earlier.
Trebonne is BQ leading the Libs by 28 votes. I think there is 1 more poll to report.
Nunavut the NDP lead by 54 votes, with 2 polls to report.
IF both those roll over to the Libs they get to 170, I can’y see them getting any more and they are only just holding a couple of other seats….
3 months ago I would npt have believed you if you had said this was where we’d be.