Centre-left Liberals make stunning comeback to win Canadian election

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and other Canadian media have projected the centre-left Liberals will win the most seats in Canada’s federal election. It’s still unclear whether the Liberals will win the 172 seats needed for a one-party majority (out of 343 total seats).

At the time of writing, the Liberals lead or have been elected in 167 seats, the Conservatives in 145, the left-wing Bloc Québécois (BQ) in 23, the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) in seven and the Greens in one.

Canada uses the first-past-the-post system to elect its MPs. On current counts, the Liberals have won 43.1% of the national vote, the Conservatives 41.7%, the BQ 6.7%, the NDP 6.1% and the Greens 1.2%. The current results are based on 94% of polling booths nationally reporting.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Liberal leader who was not previously an MP, easily won his seat of Nepean. But Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is trailing the Liberals by 2.7 points in his seat of Carleton with 89% of booths counted.

At the previous election in September 2021, the Liberals won 160 of the then 338 seats on 32.6% of the national vote. The Conservatives captured 119 seats on 33.7%, the BQ had 32 seats on 7.6% and the NDP won 25 seats on 17.8%.

The BQ benefited from vote concentration with all its votes coming in Quebec, where it won 32.1% of the vote.

The Liberals had looked doomed to suffer a massive loss in this year’s election. In early January, the CBC Poll Tracker had given the Conservatives 44% of the vote, the Liberals 20%, the NDP 19%, the BQ 9%, the Greens 4% and the far-right People’s Party 2%. With these vote shares, the Conservatives would have won a landslide with well over 200 seats.

Former Liberal leader and PM Justin Trudeau announced on January 6 he would resign these positions once a new Liberal leader had been elected. Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, was elected Liberal leader on March 9 and became PM on March 14. He called this election on March 23.

Carney’s replacement of Trudeau benefited the Liberals, but I believe the most important reason for the Liberals’ victory is US President Donald Trump. Trump’s tariffs against Canada and his talk of making Canada the 51st US state have greatly alienated Canadians and made it more difficult for the more pro-Trump Conservatives to prevail.

In an early April YouGov Canadian poll, by 64% of respondents said the US was unfriendly or an enemy rather than friendly or an ally (compared to 50% in February). And 84% said they did not want Canada to become part of the US, compared to just 11% who did.

If Canadians had been able to vote in the 2024 US presidential election, the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, would have defeated Trump by 57–18% in this poll.

Last Wednesday, Trump’s net approval in Nate Silver’s aggregate of US national polls was -5.4. His ratings have slumped a further 3.8 points since then, putting him at -9.2 net approval, with 53.3% disapproving and 44.1% approving.

In the historical comparison with past presidents’ ratings at this point in their terms, Trump’s net approval is barely higher than his approval rating in April of his first term, and much lower than for any other president.

In the United Kingdom, the far-right Reform UK party is likely to make massive gains at Thursday’s local government elections at the expense of both the Conservatives and Labour. Labour could also lose a parliamentary byelection to Reform in a safe seat. I covered these elections for The Poll Bludger on April 19.