On April 28th, 2025 Canada held the 45th General Election in its’ history in order to elect members of the House of Commons.
The result was a fourth straight term in office for the Liberals, and a third straight minority. 343 seats were up for election and the seat distribution breaks down as follows:
| Party | Seats | Vote Percentage |
| Liberal Party | 169 | 43.7% |
| Conservative Party | 144 | 41.3% |
| Bloc Québécois | 22 | 6.3% |
| NDP | 7 | 6.3% |
| Green Party | 1 | 1.3% |
The results means that the Liberals fail to win a Majority Government by three seats and will need help from other parties in order to pass legislation.
For the Conservatives, they picked up 24 seats but failed to form a Government again. Their leader, Pierre Poilievre, failed to win re-election in his riding of Carleton. He lost the seat to Bruce Fanjoy of the Liberals in a traditionally Conservative riding. Mr. Polievre was a sitting MP since 2004.
The loss for the Conservatives is huge blow. Just six months prior to the election, with the Liberals still headed by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Conservatives were looking at polling figures that not only suggested a large Majority Government but also questioned whether or not the Liberals would continue to ‘official party status’ in the House of Commons following an election. Now, the Liberals increased their seat count instead.
Some suggestions for the Conservatives would be to look at themselves. There are suggestions that the party would not allow MPs to help the Provincial Progressive Conservatives in the Ontario General Election held just two months prior (February 27th, 2025), and in response the newly elected Progressive Conservatives in Ontario would stay out of this federal election.
But, one suggestion I have is for the Conservatives to move away from a ‘full out’ right-wing platform and be more willing to adopt a more Centre to Centre-Right stance (the old ‘Red Tory’ faction of the party) which helped their counterparts in Ontario rule from 1943 to 1985 and again more recently. But, it ultimately up to the party to decide. However, I do feel that the more ‘right wing’ views that at least some members may hold hurt them. For example, Mr. Polievre stated that, if he formed the Government, that he would not criminalize abortions yet would not stop free votes on the issue if brought up under Private Members’ Bills. A clear stance that a Conservative Government would support women’s rights might have helped the party out instead of such a vague opinion.
For the NDP, the election is nothing short of a complete disaster. They had 24 seats prior to the election, and now only have seven (7) seats and a little over a third of the total votes they received in 2021, which means they fall short of having party status in the House of Commons when it begins. The current number of seats required for party recognition is 12. Jagmeet Singh, the party’s leader, failed to be re-elected in his riding of Burnaby Central.
The NDP had a Supply and Confidence Agreement with the Liberals to allow the Liberals to maintain power after the 2021 Federal General Election. The Agreement started in March of 2022 and lasted until September 2024 when the NDP pulled out of the deal although they continued to provide support for the Liberals until the House was prorogued on January 6th, 2025 in order to allow the Liberals to elect a new leader following Justin Trudeau‘s announcement of his resignation.
The Bloc Québécois, won 22 seats down from the 33 they had prior to the election.
The NDP will have to rebuild a lot now. The party that was traditionally ‘pro-labour’ only received endorsements from three major unions, with most supporting the Conservatives.
The Green Party, under the ‘co-leadership’ of Elizabeth May & Jonathan Pedneault won one seat, Ms. May’s riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands. They had two seats prior to the election. Ms. May returned as party leader, along with Mr. Pedneault, after the 2021 election.
For the Liberals, under their new leader, Mark Carney, have a lot of work to do ahead of them. Being three (3) seats short of an absolute majority in the House means that they will need the help of other MPs to get Bills passed. In the immediate future this should be little issue as the Bloc Québécois, NDP, and Greens are unlikely to support the Conservatives and if they forced an election, it might result in a Liberal Majority as the voters might not like the opposition parties forcing an election within one year of the previous election. Plus, both the Conservatives and NDP are going to have to deal with leadership issues. We know that Mr. Singh has resigned as NDP leader1. At the time of writing, Mr. Polievre, despite not having a seat in the House of Commons, wants to stay on as party leader2. However, given the fact that he has lost his own seat (after holding it for 21 years) and the fact the the party failed to form the Government for the fourth consecutive time, but time will only tell.
Mr. Carney now has to roll up his sleeves and create a new Cabinet (he made minor changes after becoming Prime Minister but now has a chance to make a new team.) But, he still has to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump and his tariffs and threats of annexation. Not to mention the War in Gaza and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And that’s just external issues. Within Canada, we still have to deal with inflation, a housing affordability crisis, climate change, immigration levels, etc. Mr. Carney and the Liberals have a lot of tough decisions to make in the near future.
But can Mr. Carney move the party away from almost 10 years of rule under Justin Trudeau? How will he make the Premiership his and not just be “the new Justin Trudeau”? Only time will tell.
Edward Brain's Blog 