Canadian voters have given the governing Liberals a fourth consecutive term in office, as the trade policy of US president Donald Trump looks to have torpedoed the chances of Canada’s Conservative Party.
With counting remaining in a handful of seats, the Canadian Liberal Party looks set for a minority government after the 2025 federal election.
The results cap off a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for Canada’s ruling party, driven in part by Trump’s tariff policy.
Tariff-fuelled victory
When prime minister Mark Carney took over from Justin Trudeau, his party faced a dire situation at the ballot box. Some polls predicted they would slip into third place.
However, buoyed in part by Trump’s punitive trade policy against Canada and a change in leader, the Liberals pulled ahead in the polls. Carney often attacked Trump during both his party leadership campaign and the general election
During the leadership debates, he said he would to “stand up” to Trump and said that the old relationship was “over”, making promises to diversify Canadian trade and foreign relations way from their former long-term ally.
Chrystia Freeland, a former finance minister and one-time leadership rival of Carney, said that she believed the question on the ballot had been:
“Who can fight for Canada, who can stand up to Donald Trump, and who can defend our national economic interest, and who can seize this moment to build Canada?”
Results
According to the latest CBC tracker, the Liberals have won or are leading in 168 seats, with the Conservatives sitting at 144. This would put Carney’s party four seats shy of an overall majority.
The French separatist Bloc Québécois sit at 23 while the leftwing New Democratic Party (NDP) are clinging on to 7, having lost official party status in the new parliament. The NDP previously supported the Liberal minority government under Trudeau.
Jagmeet Singh, the NDP’s leader, finished third in his own seat in Burnaby Central in British Colombia, as his party looked to be squeezed out between voters wanting change and voters fearing Trump’s tariffs.
Wilderness for Poilievre
Even though the Tories gained in a number of seats, they face another five years in the political wilderness.
Opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, is currently behind by 3,000 votes in his own riding of Carleton.
A loss for Poilievre, a vocal supporter of Trump before the tariff policy was announced, would cap off a long-running reversal of fortunes for the conservative firebrand. At the start of the year Poilievre was widely expected to sweep to victory in the general election.
The tariff policy looks to have weighed him down during the election and his future remains uncertain. Although he has said he will remain as leader, the loss of his riding could threaten this.
Next steps
With voting still remaining in a handful of seats, the Liberals appear to have won the popular vote but are now set for another minority government.
Carney had only been PM for nine days when he called the election. If he had lost, he would have become the shortest tenured PM in Canadian history.
In his victory speech, he repeated his promise to diversify trade away from the US, saying:
"When I sit down with President Trump, it will be to discuss the future economy and security relationship between two sovereign nations.”
"It will be our full knowledge that we have many, many other options to build prosperity for all Canadians."
As voting opened, Trump restated his possibly unhelpful demand for Canada to become the 51st US state on social media.
