The 2021 Canadian federal election, held on September 20, 2021, saw only minor changes from the preceding 2019 election.[1] The incumbent Liberal Party, led by Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau, did not win the popular vote and failed to win enough seats to gain a parliamentary majority, winning only a plurality of seats and retaining its status as a minority government. The Conservative Party won the popular vote and continued as the Official Opposition.[2][a] In March 2022, the Liberals struck a deal with the fourth-place New Democratic Party (NDP), where the latter would provide confidence and supply for the duration of the Parliament in exchange for certain policy concessions.[3] The agreement lasted until September 2024, when the NDP terminated the deal.[4]
One week after the election, on September 27, Annamie Paul resigned as the Green Party leader, citing lack of party support.[5] The subsequent leadership election was won by former leader Elizabeth May, who ran on a "joint ticket" with Jonathan Pedneault, proposing a co-leadership model; Pedneault was officially named the deputy leader, pending a change to the party's constitution to allow co-leadership.[6] May and Pedneault formally became co-leaders on February 4, 2025.[7]
The government was plunged into a political crisis on December 16, 2024, when finance minister Chrystia Freeland abruptly resigned, only hours before she was set to present the government's fall economic statement, due to her opposition to Trudeau's fiscal policy.[10] Trudeau, who had already faced down a caucus revolt in October, was faced with renewed questions about his leadership.[11] By December 22, 21 Liberal MPs had publicly called for Trudeau to step down.[12] On January 6, 2025, Trudeau announced his intention to resign as prime minister after the party elected his successor.[13] The ensuing leadership election was won by Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada.[14] Carney was sworn in as prime minister on March 14.[15]
Under the fixed-date provisions of the Canada Elections Act, which requires federal elections to be held on the third Monday in October in the fourth calendar year after the polling day of the previous election, the election was scheduled to take place on October 20, 2025.[16] However, elections can occur before the scheduled date if the governor general dissolves Parliament on the recommendation of the prime minister, either for a snap election or after the government loses a vote on a supply bill or a specific motion of no confidence.[17]
On March 20, 2024, the government introduced the Electoral Participation Act, which included an amendment to the Canada Elections Act that would have changed the fixed election date to October 27, 2025, to avoid conflicting with Diwali, as well as municipal elections in Alberta.[18][19] The bill died on the order paper when the Parliament of Canada was prorogued by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he announced his resignation.[20]
On March 23, 2025, after a request from Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Governor General dissolved parliament and called an election for April 28, 2025.[21]
The table below lists parties represented in the House of Commons after the 2021 federal election and their current standings. Kevin Vuong, despite being elected as a Liberal, was disavowed by the party too late to alter his affiliation on the ballot and has since sat as an independent.[22]
Canada's electoral system, a "first-past-the-post" system, is formally referred to as a single-member plurality system. Voters select a representative nominated for their electoral district (sometimes referred to as a riding), and the candidate with more votes than any other candidate is elected to a seat in the 343-member House of Commons and represents that riding as its member of Parliament (MP). The party that wins the most seats in the House of Commons usually forms government, with that party's leader becoming prime minister. The largest party by seat count that is not the government or part of a governing coalition becomes the Official Opposition. That party receives more finances and privileges than the other opposition parties.[23][24]
An absolute majority of the votes cast in the last election is not needed to form government and is rarely achieved. Additionally, the government party does not need to obtain a majority of the seats in the House of Commons; under the current multi-party system, it is common for the government party to lack a majority. However, to pass bills, the governing party must have support of a majority of MPs. Without majority support, the government can be defeated, then a new party is named government or an election has to be held.[citation needed]
This will be the first election contested under the new electoral districts established in the 2022 redistribution. Consequently, media outlets tend to report seat gains and losses as compared to notional results. These are the results if all votes cast in 2021 were unchanged but regrouped by new electoral district boundaries, as published by Elections Canada.[25]
As of April 2025[update], 60 MPs have announced they will not run in the 2025 federal election. One MP lost their party nomination race to run again. One MP had their candidacy revoked by their party and was barred from running under its banner.
Four MPs announced their intention not to stand again, but later resigned from Parliament before the election.[26][27][28][29][30] Five further MPs initially announced their intention to stand down before later changing their minds.[31][32][33][34][35][36]
September 27 – Annamie Paul announced her intent to resign as leader of the Green Party.[52]
November 10 – Paul formally submitted her resignation and ended her membership in the party.[53] The Green Party accepted her resignation a few days later.[54][55]
November 15 – Senator Denise Batters launched a petition to review the leadership of Erin O'Toole.[56] Party president Robert Batherson decided the petition was not in order.[56] The following day, Batters was removed from the Conservative caucus.[57]
March 22 – The Liberal and New Democratic parties reached a confidence and supply agreement, with the NDP agreeing to support the Liberal government until June 2025 in exchange for specific policy commitments.[64]
December 9 – Trudeau's Liberal government survived a third motion of no confidence, with the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois voting for the motion, and the Liberals, NDP, and Greens opposed.[71]
December 20 – Trudeau conducted a major cabinet reshuffle. The NDP officially committed to introducing a non-confidence motion against the government. Over 20 Liberal MPs publicly called for Trudeau to resign and over 50 signed a private letter asking him to resign.[75]
January 6 – Trudeau announced the prorogation of parliament until March 24 in addition to his resignation as prime minister and as leader of the Liberal Party, effective upon the election of his successor as party leader in a leadership election.[76]
January 15 – Trudeau announced that he will not run in Papineau again.[77]
March 20 – Nepean Liberal MP Chandra Arya's nomination is revoked, allegedly due to foreign interference concerns.[81] He had previously been disqualified as a Liberal leadership candidate.[82]
March 22 – Carney announced that he will run in Nepean.[83]
March 23 – Carney advised the governor general to dissolve parliament and call a general election for April 28, 2025.[84]
April 7 and 9 – Deadline for candidate nominations; final list of candidates published.[85]
When nominations closed on April 7, Elections Canada announced that 1,959 candidates would be standing for election.[87] No party fielded full slates of candidates in all 343 ridings, though the Bloc Québécois, which only runs candidates in Quebec, covered all 78 Quebec constituencies. The Liberals, Conservatives and NDP were all one short,[88] respectively dropping out of Ponoka—Didsbury,[89]Québec Centre[90] and South Shore—St. Margarets.[91] In Ponoka—Didsbury, Zarnab Zafar was not identified as a Liberal allegedly because of "a clerical error with Elections Canada" and is thus under no affiliation, but the Liberals are endorsing her. In Québec Centre, there was said to be "an issue with paperwork" causing the Conservative candidate's nomination to be rejected after the deadline for candidate registrations.[92] The NDP candidate in South Shore—St. Margarets dropped out for personal reasons,[88] and an independent candidate in the riding was endorsed by the NDP afterward.[91]
The Longest Ballot Committee targeted Poilievre's Carleton riding, getting 83 independents nominated and thus bumping up the total candidates to 91.[93] When asked why they did not do similar efforts in the constituencies of other party leaders, the organizers said it was a matter of limited resources.[94]
Launch a "Canada Strong Pass", available from June to August 2025, that grants children and youth under the age of 18 free access to national galleries and museums, as well as free seats on trains operated by Via Rail when traveling with their parents.[102]
Reduce lowest income tax bracket from 15% to 14%[103]
Eliminate the GST on new home purchases under $1-million for first-time home buyers[104]
Create a crown corporation, Build Canada Homes, to serve as a housing developer overseeing affordable housing construction.[105]
Offer $25 billion in financing for prefabricated housing and $10 billion for affordable homebuilding.[106]
Increase annual funding for CBC/Radio-Canada by CA$150 million, and enshrine such funding in law.[107]
Reduce lowest income tax bracket from 15% to 12.75%.[108]
Increase the basic personal income tax exemption for working seniors by $10,000, extend the RRSP withdrawal deadline to 73 and keep the retirement age at 65.[109][110]
Eliminate the GST on Canadian-made vehicles and require federal agencies to only purchase Canadian vehicles[120]
Require foreign automakers to manufacture some vehicles in Canada or use some Canadian-made parts to sell in Canada, and forbid US automakers from moving equipment purchased with government grants out of Canada[121]
In its May 2022 report, the Leaders' Debates Commission recommended various improvements for future debates, and that it remain a permanent publicly funded entity to organize leaders' debates.[150][151] In October 2024, the Leaders' Debate Commission announced that the English-language debate would be hosted by TVO's Steve Paikin, while the French-language debate would be hosted by Ici RDI's Patrice Roy.[152]
TVA Nouvelles had announced plans to host its own French-language debate with the Bloc, Conservative, Liberal, and NDP leaders, but cancelled the event after the Liberal Party withdrew.[153][154]
On April 1, 2025, the Commission announced that it had invited the leaders of the Bloc Québécois, Conservative Party, Green Party, Liberal Party, and New Democratic Party to the debates. Invitations were issued on the basis of meeting at least two of three conditions: having at least one sitting MP, recording at least 4% support in national opinion polling, and endorsing candidates in at least 90 percent of ridings.[155] The Green Party's invitation was rescinded on April 16 as it ultimately ran candidates in 232 ridings (less than 70 percent) despite earlier submitting to the Commission that it would run candidates in every riding.[156][157] The People's Party was not invited, as it did not meet the criteria for either holding a seat in Parliament or polling at least 4%.[86][155]
On April 15, the leaders of the Bloc Québécois and the NDP suggested rescheduling the French language debate because of the debate coinciding with the final hockey game of the Montreal Canadiens' regular season, after it became clear the game would decide whether the Canadiens would make the playoffs. The Commission declined to reschedule the debate to a different day, but agreed to move the start time two hours earlier to 6:00 pm EDT.[158]
A post-debate news scrum after the French language debate was dominated by the far-right Rebel News and other right-wing media outlets, leading to complaints from other journalists at the event.[159] Michel Cormier, the Commission's executive director, responded that he was "unaware" that Rebel News and another organization associated with Rebel founder Ezra Levant were registered as third-party advertisers with Elections Canada.[160][161] In an interview, David Cochrane of CBC News, asked Cormier about the fairness of the distribution of questions among outlets and the type of questions asked. Cormier responded, "There's only so much we can do to control free speech." During the English language debate the next day, CTV News and the Globe and Mail reported a disturbance between Levant and journalists from other outlets, and a Global News reporter suggested that Rebel staff tried to interfere with the live broadcast of the debate.[159] Cormier abruptly cancelled the planned news scrum, citing security concerns, as Montreal Police secured the venue.[161][162]
2025 Canadian general election debates
Date
Organizers
Location
Language
Moderator
P Participant A Absent (invited) I Invited R Rescinded invitation N Not invited
Evolution of voting intentions according to polls conducted during the 2025 Canadian federal election campaign period, graphed from the data in the tables below. Trendlines are 25-poll local regressions, with polls weighted by proximity in time and a logarithmic function of sample size. 95% confidence ribbons represent uncertainty about the trendlines, not the likelihood that actual election results would fall within the intervals.Evolution of voting intentions according to polls conducted during the pre-campaign period of the 45th Canadian federal election, graphed from the data in the table below. Trendlines are 30-poll local regressions, with polls weighted by proximity in time and a logarithmic function of sample size. 95% confidence ribbons represent uncertainty about the trendlines, not the likelihood that actual election results would fall within the intervals.
^ abWhile formal results showed the Liberals winning or leading in 160 seats, those totals include Kevin Vuong, who was disavowed during the campaign by his party, and sat as an Independent in the House of Commons from 2021 to 2025.
^Though parties registered with Elections Canada can field candidates in any riding they wish, the Bloc Québécois has never fielded candidates outside of Quebec (78 seats), thus rendering it impossible for the party to gain a majority in Parliament.
^Party affiliation of retiring MPs at the time of the 2021 federal election
^Despite having two co-leaders, the Greens chose Pedneault to represent them in all debates and interviews.[163]
^ abInvited on April 1. Invitation rescinded on April 16 due to the party running candidates in fewer than 90% of ridings.[157]
^ In the riding of Ponoka—Didsbury, Zarnab Zafar is endorsed by the Liberal Party, but due to a clerical error with Elections Canada her party affiliation was not registered.[88]
^ In the riding of Québec Centre, Conservative candidate Chanie Thériault had her paperwork rejected by Elections Canada; the party did not specify the reason(s).[88]
^ In the riding of South Shore—St. Margarets, NDP candidate Brendan Mosher dropped out of the race for personal reasons. Hayden Henderson is endorsed by the NDP but will be listed on the ballot as an Independent candidate.[88][91]
^ ab"Additional Data". Transposition of Votes from the 44th General Election to the 2023 Representation Orders. Elections Canada. Retrieved March 17, 2025.
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