Conservative leader projected to lose seat in Canada election – as it happened

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin has congratulated Mark Carney on winning the election. In a post on X, he wrote: “Irish-Canadian relations are deep and strong, based on shared values. I look forward to working with Canada’s new government.”

At the beginning of the year, Canada’s Conservatives had a 25-point lead over the Liberal government, and their leader, Pierre Poilievre, looked certain to be the country’s next prime minister.

But as the votes cast in Monday’s election have been counted, the story of the campaign has been confirmed: victory for the Liberals and their new leader, Mark Carney, who have extended their decade of rule by as much as another five years.

With almost all polls counted, it appears likely that the Liberals will fall just short of a majority, and instead be the leading party in a minority government, as in the last two elections.

Regardless, it represents a remarkable turnaround, and vindication for Carney’s efforts to present himself as the prime ministerial candidate who would most effectively stand up to Donald Trump. As for Poilievre: the CBC projects he has lost his seat.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, 45, is expected to lose his longtime rural Ottawa seat to Liberal MP Bruce Fanjoy.

Fanjoy – who reportedly used to work in business and marketing – is projected to win 51% of the vote in Carleton, while Poilievre, a veteran politician who first won the Ottawa seat in 2004, was able to secure only 46%.

Thanking everyone who supported his campaign, Fanjoy wrote on X:

To all the people of Carleton, as your new Member of Parliament, I’ll work to bring us together. We are all Canadian. We have to look out for ourselves, and we have to take care of each other. Let’s get to work.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron has congratulated Mark Carney on his election win.

In a post on X, Macron wrote:

Dear Mark Carney, congratulations on your victory. You embody a strong Canada in the face of today’s challenges. France is glad to further strengthen the friendship which unites our two countries. I’m looking forward to working with you — “elbow to elbow!”

You can watch a video report of the election night – in which the Liberals made a striking comeback – in the player below:

We would like to hear from Canadians about their views on the election results. What are the issues you want addressed and what do you want to see from the next term?

You can share your views by filling in this form.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has congratulated Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on his election win.

Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X:

Ukraine deeply values our close ties with Canada and the unwavering support of the Canadian people.

We are sincerely grateful for Canada’s principled leadership in supporting Ukraine — from military, financial, and humanitarian assistance to imposing sanctions against Russia.

We are confident that our partnership will only grow stronger in our shared pursuit of peace, justice, and security.

Canada has committed to providing economic support after Russia’s war in Ukraine ends and Carney has said his country will continue lending Kyiv “the military support it needs to defend itself — now and into the future”.

In his concession speech earlier in the night (after polls projected a victory for the Liberal party), Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said his party “didn’t quite get over the finish line” and that “hard lessons were learned”.

“While we will do our constitutional duty of holding the government to account and proposing better alternatives, we will always put Canada first as we stare down tariffs and other irresponsible threats from President Trump,” Poilievre, who described the results as a “virtual tie”, told supporters.

“Conservatives have been leading the debate and we will continue to put forward the best arguments to improve the lives of our people right across this country.”

Mark Carney’s Liberal party is projected to win more of parliament’s 343 seats than the Conservatives. But, as we have been reporting, it remains unclear whether the Liberals will win the 172 needed to secure a majority, and based on CBC’s vote tally, it’s projected to win 168 seats overall.

The Liberal party is due to win the most seats in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, while the Conservatives are ahead in Alberta. The race between these two parties is close in British Columbia.

It is 04.50am in Ottawa. Elections Canada is still counting ballots, and it will likely be a couple of more hours before confirmation of whether the Liberals have done enough to obtain a majority government. If it falls short it would need the support of political rivals to govern.

China has said it is open to improving ties with Canada, after Mark Carney won the country’s election to lead his Liberal Party to another term in power.

“China is willing to develop China-Canada relations on the basis of mutual respect, equality, and mutual benefit,” foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said in comments that wouldn’t be described as warm.

Ties between Beijing and Ottawa have been tense in recent years.

The arrest of a senior Chinese telecom executive on a US warrant in Vancouver in December 2018 and Beijing’s retaliatory detention of two Canadians on espionage charges plunged relations into a deep freeze.

Ties were strained further over allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections in 2019 and 2021, charges Beijing has denied.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has congratulated Mark Carney for his victory in the Canadian elections.

She wrote in a post on X:

The bond between Europe and Canada is strong — and growing stronger. I look forward to working closely together, both bilaterally and within the G7.

We’ll defend our shared democratic values, promote multilateralism, and champion free and fair trade.

Carney has been working on a deal with the EU on military production and sees the bloc as a destination for deeper security alliances and trade partnerships away from the US.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is still in a tight race to retain his seat in the riding of Carleton in Ontario. He currently trails Liberal Bruce Fanjoy by 2.7%.

Jonathan Pedneault, co-leader of the Green party, has failed in his attempt to get elected, while his fellow Green leader Elizabeth May has been returned as MP for Saanich – Gulf Islands.

Jagmeet Singh, who has already said he will step down as leader of the NDP, has conceded his seat in Burnaby Central.

Canada’s election is the subject of our First Edition newsletter. Archie Bland writes:

Mark Carney, whom British readers will remember from his stint running the Bank of England, is the model of a modern central banker: competent, conventional, and colourless, more likely to be popular at Davos than in retail politics.

While the conventional wisdom for years has been that such figures are no longer viable political leaders, the specific circumstances in Canada this year have turned that analysis on its head. As he said himself in March: “I’m most useful in a crisis. I’m not that good in peacetime.”

Carney has promised to negotiate a new trade deal with the US, and said he hopes to meet Trump in person soon – but adds that Canada has the leverage to wait until the time is right to do so. In the meantime, he wants to focus on lowering internal trade barriers and bolstering major investment projects, such as housing construction, to spur the economy.

He has also said that the old relationship with the United States is over, and emphasised closer ties with the UK and Europe in his brief tenure as prime minister since he replaced Justin Trudeau. In his victory speech less than an hour ago, Carney said: “This is Canada, and we decide what happens here.” And he added: “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we must never forget the lessons.”

Read more of Archie Bland’s analysis of the result here: Tuesday briefing – How Trump’s threats to Canada led to a Liberal victory

Carney calls the US a “sometimes hostile” neighbour. He continues his call for unity.

“We are buying Canadian, we are supporting our friends and neighbours in the cross hairs of President Trump. We will win this trade war and build the strongest economy of the G7.”

“When we are threatened we will fight with everything we have to get the best deal for Canada.”

His speech is over.

Mark Carney says “this is Canada, and we decide what happens here.”

“We will need to think big and act bigger.” A ringing phone interrupts him.

‘We will need to do things previously thought impossible.”

He goes on: “We can give ourselves far more than the Americans can ever take away. The coming days and months will be challenging and will call for some sacrifices. But we will share those challenges by supporting our workers.”

A bit more from Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s speech earlier. He vowed to keep fighting for Canadians and their right to an affordable home on a safe street.

“We are cognizant of the fact that we didn’t get over the finish line yet,” Poilievre told his supporters in Ottawa.

“We know that change is needed, but change is hard to come by. It takes time. It takes work. And that’s why we have to learn the lessons of tonight — so that we can have an even better result the next time Canadians decide the future of the country.”

Our correspondent Leyland Cecco in Ottawa writes that Mark Carney has long professed a simple article of faith when navigating through crisis: “A plan beats no plan.”

But Leyland argues that Carney’s election victory was shaped by a series of chance events that hinged more on luck and circumstance than meticulous forethought.

Read his full analysis here:

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has commented on the election results coming out of Canada, which show Liberal leader Mark Carney on track to defeat the Pierre Poilevre-led Conservatives. He said:

Well it looks very positive for him. I’ve had a couple of really warm conversations with him. I thank him for defending Vegemite – [that was] a really practical outcome of the friendship that we have between Australia and Canada. We have a close relationship, we are very similar countries, both part of the Commonwealth, we share a lot in common.

Albanese is asked if it’s a positive for the western alliance that Canada’s incumbent government retained power.

Mark Carney has shown in the short time that he’s been prime minister that he’s determined represent the national interest of Canada.

Asked about Carney’s tough approach to dealing with US president Donald Trump, the prime minister said:

Mark Carney has stood up for national interests, just as I stand up for Australia’s interest.

Green party co-leader Elizabeth May, whom it had been feared would lose her seat, is now projected to win in her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands with 43%.

The party currently has two parliamentary seats, but pre-election polls had put the party on only around 2%, its worst level in recent years, and there were fears it would struggle to defend them.

Early results showed May’s fellow Green MP, Mike Morrice, trailing in second place in his seat of Kitchener Centre.

May’s co-leader, political newcomer co-leader Jonathan Pedneault, is also trailing behind all other major party candidates on 10% in his riding of Outremont in Montreal.

The Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is in a tight race to win his seat of Carleton, which he has held for the last seven terms.

In protest of the country’s “first past the post” electoral system, activists for electoral reform have added 90 names to the ballot - making the ballot more than a metre-long and creating headaches for Elections Canada and the scrutineers.

Early results show Liberal Bruce Fanjoy leading Poilievre by 53% to 43%.

Chrystia Freeland, the former deputy prime minister whose resignation set in train the events that eventually led to Justin Trudeau’s own resignation, has been speaking to CBC after she was projected to retain her riding in University-Rosedale in Ontario with 61.5% of the vote.

She said the Liberal victory was “a remarkable turnaround” and that she was “delighted by our party’s comeback”, adding that the vote came at “an existential moment for Canada”.

Back in December, “people had totally written us off … and now you’re talking about what the strength of our government will be,” she said, adding “kudos to our prime minster Mark Carney … he has been a great campaigner”. Freeland had stood for the Liberal leadership but lost out to Carney.

She said that Canadians had “recognised that this was a critical moment for our country” with the question on the ballot being “who can fight for Canada, who can stand up to Donald Trump”.

Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the 1989 massacre at Montreal’s École Polytechnique and now a prominent gun control advocate, is expected to win her seat for the Liberals in the riding of Châteauguay-Les Jardins-de-Napierville, in Quebec.

Supporters had feared for her candidacy after prime minister Mark Carney managed to mangle both her name and get the location of the massacre wrong in the same sentence at a campaign event in March.

Preliminary results have her on 44.5% of the vote.

Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, a polling firm, has told Reuters the Liberal win hinged on three factors. He said:

It was the ‘anybody-but-Conservative’ factor, it was the Trump tariff factor, and then it was the [former prime minister Justin] Trudeau departure ... which enabled a lot of left-of-center voters and traditional Liberal voters to come back to the party.

David Lametti, a former Liberal justice minister, is giving the credit for the projected Liberal win to Mark Carney. He told CTV:

We were dead and buried in December. Now we are going to form a government.

We have turned this around thanks to Mark.

Mark Carney, who has never been in parliament before, is projected to win a seat in the Ottawa riding of Nepean – that will make him the first prime minister to hold a seat in Ottawa since the 1880s, according to CBC. Preliminary results have him on 63% of the vote.

The Elections Canada website still appears to be experiencing technical difficulties, although results are still going out to news websites via a back-end process.

A few pics from Liberal party headquarters:

Some pictures from the headquarters of the Conservative party:

People in several communities in Canada’s Arctic Nunavik region have been unable to vote as Elections Canada struggles to transport its staff due to bad weather, Radio Canada is reporting.

Voters in Salluit, Ivujuvik, Tasiujaq, and Puvirnituq were unable to vote, the broadcaster reports.

“We have neither ballots nor information on how to proceed [to vote] in this election,” it quoted the mayor of Ivujivik, Adamie Kalingosaid, as saying.

Radio Canada said the election agency had confirmed it was attempting to reach several remote communities without specifying which ones.

Prime minister Mark Carney and his wife, Diana Fox Carney, watch the results rolling in:

Some insight into the results from Tyler Olsen, a journalist in British Columbia, who posted on X:

The NDP vote is what will determine this election. Returns suggest vote total collapsing by as much as 75%. If that holds, the more popular the NDP was any particular area, the better the Liberal will do.

Early results from the Atlantic provinces have both the Liberals and Conservatives outperforming their previous results in the 2021 federal election, with the leftwing New Democratic party collapsing in the region.

Supporters of both the Liberals and Conservatives have nonetheless seized on the results to suggest their respective parties are overperforming expectations, despite significant shifts as more votes are counted.

Throughout the course of the election, the starkly different messages from two main parties – and the spectre of a looming trade showdown with the United States – have transformed the race into a “presidentialized” vote at the expense of opposition parties.

Dominic LeBlanc, the minister of international trade and intergovernmental affairs, has said he is still confident the government could win a majority. “There are a lot of votes still to be counted,” the told the CBC.

“We should still be very confident in Mr Carney’s campaign,” he said, adding that a majority was a “hope” and that “I think it’s realistic”.

Earlier the broadcaster declared LeBlanc, who had been seen as a leadership contender when Trudeau stepped down, had held on to his riding of Beauséjour with 60% of the vote.

MP Wayne Long, who was the first Liberal to call for Justin Trudeau to resign as leader last year, says Mark Carney has been “the difference maker” as CBC declared he had held onto his riding of Saint John-Kennebecasis in New Brunswick with 61.5% of the vote.

Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and of England, was a “great blood pressure lowerer” Long told the national broadcaster, adding “I heard it at door after door”.

He mentions the tariffs which were imposed on Canada by Donald Trump as also being extremely influential at the ballot box – Saint John was listed by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce as being the most vulnerable to their impacts.

A few minutes ago CBC declared its first flip of the evening, as the Conservatives took the riding of Long Range Mountains in Newfoundland and Labrador from the Liberals.

Conservative Carol Anstey took the seat with 53%of the vote, while Don Bradshaw of the Liberals trailed on just 39%. Liberal MP Gudie Hutchings had won the seat in 2021 with 44%.

Here’s a snapshot of what voters are thinking, courtesy of AFP:

With warm spring weather, Canadians lined up outside schools, community centers and other venues in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto to cast ballots.

Montreal resident Hamza Fahri, who planned to vote after work, described the election as “unique.”

“I wanted to vote for change in Canada. I wanted the Liberals to go, but in the end, I’ll vote for Carney because he is a strong, serious man and that’s what the country needs to face Trump,” the 28-year-old engineer told AFP.

In Canada’s largest city Toronto, Conservative supporter Chad McCann said the Liberals “hadn’t really done much for us” over their decade in power.

“I think for a strong change, there is no better time than today,” the 37-year-old told AFP.

For first-time voter Hilary Recker, getting to the polls was a priority.

“I’m just excited to vote,” the 19-year-old Toronto resident said.

“Hopefully it doesn’t end up like the (United) States and I don’t get disappointed.”

CBC’s decision desk has called another five seats. Canada’s national broadcaster declared that the Liberals had held the ridings of Avalon, Acadie-Bathurst, Cape Spear and Beauséjour while the Conservatives have held the seat of Central Newfoundland.

MP Clifford Small, a Conservative who first won Central Newfoundland in 2021 and won 60% of the vote this time round, told the broadcaster he expected the Conservatives to double their seat count and said the “blue wave had started”.

The Elections Canada website appears to be unavailable right now.

The Toronto Star reports that it has confirmed technical problems and that official results being used by news websites via a back-end process are still operational.

The agency responsible for administering the country’s elections says it is working to restore full access as soon as possible.

CBC has declared its first winner of the evening, with Philip Earle of the Liberals winning the riding of Labrador in the east of the country with almost 62% of the vote.

His nearest rival, Ella Wallace of the Conservatives, won just 31%.

This is Helen Livingstone taking over the blog from my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong.

The polls have now closed in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

Prime minister and Liberal party leader Mark Carney is reminding voters that they can still cast their ballot if they are in line when polls close.

“Your vote matters,” Carney writes in a post on X.

Only one Canadian adult is legally barred from voting from today’s federal election: Stéphane Perrault, the country’s chief electoral officer and the head of Elections Canada.

According to Elections Canada:

The Chief Electoral Officer is responsible for the administration of elections, referendums and other important aspects of our electoral system.

Perrault was appointed to the post in 2018.

Canada’s former prime minister Jean Chrétien has predicted the Liberals will win a majority government after polls close tonight.

Chrétien, 91, said he expects “to celebrate the majority government of the Liberal party” during a rally for Ottawa Centre Liberal incumbent Yasir Naqvi, the Canadian Press reported.

“Monday is going to be a Liberal sunshine,” he said, drawing cheers.

Chrétien led three majority Liberal governments between 1993 and 2003 and has campaigned for the party in dozens of 30 electoral districts across the country as the party seeks to match – or even eclipse – his 1993 landslide victory.

Election day in Canada falls on a day of mourning after 11 people were killed and dozens of others injured when a driver ploughed a car into a crowd at a street festival in Vancouver on Saturday evening.

The festival, known as Lapu-Lapu Day, is also widely celebrated in the Philippines and honors Datu Lapu-Lapu, the Filipino chieftain who famously defeated Spanish forces in 1521.

Many across Canada have set aside time today not only to vote, but to mourn and visit makeshift memorials in honor of the victims.

The Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC), a trade union based in British Columbia, urged people to “get out and vote” as it says the rights of Canadian workers are “under threat”.

“Big corporations and wealthy elites are working harder than ever to influence policy in their favour, often at the expense of working families,” the statement says. “If we stay silent, we risk losing the gains we fought so hard to achieve. If we act, we can elect leaders who will invest in social services and good paying jobs, strengthen labour laws, tackle the climate crisis, and ensure dignity for every worker.

“The stakes are too high for any of us to sit this election out.”

Prime minister Mark Carney is posting hockey-themed campaign videos on social media, including using the phrase “Elbows up”, a hockey reference describing players using their his elbows to defend themselves and now used to as a pro-Canada sovereignty slogan, as well as a post saying: “Today, we leave everything on the ice.”

He also included a video featuring actor Mike Myers in an ice hockey rink.

Liberal leader Mark Carney has been spotted casting his vote at a polling station in Ottawa, Ontario.

Carney and his wife, Diana Fox Carney, voted in the Ottawa-Vanier-Gloucester riding where they are resident.

Carney is not running in that riding but instead he is running in Nepean, another suburban Ottawa riding.

New Democratic party leader Jagmeet Singh’s own riding of Burnaby Central could be at risk, according to reports.

Polls suggest Singh is in a three-way race to hold on to his seat, with polls projecting a Liberal victory in the riding, according to the Canadian press.

New Democratic party leader Jagmeet Singh has also responded to Donald Trump’s comments this morning, after the US president once again threatened Canada’s independent sovereignty.

“I hear Trump has something to say about our election,” Singh wrote in a post on X. “He doesn’t choose our future. We do.”

He urged voters to “protect what makes Canada, Canada”.

Here are some of the latest images from Canada, where voters have been casting their ballots across the country to decide who will form the next government.

Who is eligible to vote?

• Canadian citizens who are at least 18 years old are eligible to vote today

• Voters must vote at their assigned polling station. To find out where they can vote, they can check their voter information card

• Voters must be registered. Those who are not registered can register at their polling station when they go to vote.

• Voters must prove their identity and address – here are three options to do so

The unfailing politeness of Canadians is a national character trait recognised the world over, but expats living in the UK who were readying their postal ballots for the elections were in no mood for niceties.

“If you mess with Canadians, we’ll hit back,” said Sarah Helppi, a 44-year-old Toronto native turned Londoner who spoke to the Guardian as she posted her ballot for what she called the most important Canadian vote in her lifetime.

For Helppi, hitting back against Donald Trump’s import tariffs and threats to annex what he has derisively called the “51st state” meant casting a postal vote in Canada for the first time in the 12 years she has lived in the UK.

“I feel united with the Canadian people in trying to find their way out of this,” she said.

We want someone to make the hard decisions about how to re-engineer the economy away from the US, and to me that person is [Mark] Carney.

“I think it’s quite clear that it’s going to be between Carney and [Pierre] Poilievre this time around,” said Nathalie Cook, a 29-year-old primary school teacher from Ottawa living in London. “It definitely feels like the most important election I’ve ever voted in.”

Some voters in Windsor, Ontario, are being redirected to a new polling location after a fire forced the shutdown of a recreation centre that was serving as a federal election polling station.

Fire crews were called to WFCU Centre earlier on Monday and people inside were evacuated, Windsor fire and rescue services said. The fire has since been brought under control.

Election officials have redirected Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore voters to St Joseph’s high school nearby.

Elections Canada is urging voters who plan to head to the polls after work or around dinner time to consider going a little earlier or later.

Voters who have a flexible schedule should consider heading to the polling station before lunch or early in the afternoon when polls are typically less busy, it says.

The Bloc Québécois leader, Yves-François Blanchet, has been pictured casting his vote in Chambly, Quebec.

Blanchet said he expected close battles in Quebec and that it would be “a very interesting evening for people who like politics as much as others like golf or football.”

Polls show Bloc Québécois in second place in Quebec with 28% support, after the Liberals at 42% support, according to CTV.

Canada Sports Betting, a top resource for Canadian betting, has been updated to show the Liberals as the “clear frontrunners” of this election. According to these odds, Liberals have an 83% chance of victory.

While the Liberals have seen a slight decline and Conservatives have seen a slight boost in odds in the days leading up to the election, the Conservative party is still trailing behind with a 23% chance of winning, according to the company.

In a short video posted on X, prime minister Mark Carney referred to a “crisis” in the US and reminded voters of the threat to Canada’s economy posed by Trump’s tariffs.

Carney says in the video: “I know people are anxious right now. The crisis in the United States doesn’t stop at their borders.

“They can become divided and weak. But this is Canada and we decided what happens here. Let’s choose to be united and strong – Canada strong.”

Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre, along with his wife, Anaida Poilievre, have cast their votes at an Ottawa polling station in Ontario, Canada.

Polls are now officially open across Canada. Here are a few images of what voting day looks like.

Both liberal prime minister Mark Carney and conservative Pierre Poilievre are still doing some last minute campaigning on social media.

Carney posted on X: “It’s time, Canada. Vote #CanadaStrong” along with a campaign video.

Poilievre posted on X: “It’s simple: No vote, no change. Bring friends, family and coworkers out to VOTE for Change. Vote Conservative.”

Here are some pictures of voters lining up outside a polling station in Toronto, Ontario this morning as Canada votes in the federal election.

Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney has arrived at Ottawa’s International airport on election morning. Yesterday he was in Vancouver attending a vigil at the scene of a car ramming attack that killed 11 people and injured dozens at a Filipino heritage festival.

Canada’s Globe and Mail reports that for this election, authorities have sent out a record number of voting packs to overseas voters, including to 20,000 new voters living in the US. Over 100,000 overseas voting kits have been sent out, of which 44,623 had been returned by 26 April. At the last election about 55,000 kits were sent to overseas voters.

Earlier this month my colleague Leyland Cecco put together this comprehensive guide to today’s poll: Canada elections – who are the key players and what is at stake?

In a country that spans multiple time zones, the windows of voting are set so that results can be arrived at mostly at the same time across the board. The voting windows are as follows:

• Newfoundland time: 8.30am to 8.30pm

• Atlantic time: 8.30am to 8.30pm

• Eastern time: 9.30am to 9.30pm

• Central time: 8.30am to 8.30pm

• Mountain time: 7.30am to 7.30pm

• Pacific time: 7am to 7pm

Until February, the Conservatives enjoyed a 25 point lead over the Liberals. Pollsters gave the Tories a 99% chance of winning if an election were called at the time with one of the largest parliamentary majorities in decades. But Donald Trump’s aggressive posture towards Canada has seemingly changed all that: the Conservatives’ dominant lead has disappeared and they found themselves trailing during the twilight of the campaign.

Five parties were represented in Canada’s parliament at the point this election was called. Mark Carney’s Liberal party held 153 seats, shy of an overall majority. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party had 120 seats, and formed the official opposition party.

Bloc Québécois had 33 seats, the New Democrats (NDP) 24 seats, and the Green party held two seats. There were three independent seats and some vacancies.