Canada’s recent election is one of an unprecedented turnaround. Indeed, what a few months ago seemed an inevitable wash-out for the ruling Liberal Party became the party’s greatest performance in several election cycles, with the party celebrating a stunning victory. Several changes of fortune made a fourth Liberal term a possibility, dramatically changing the course of Canadian politics in a matter of mere months. This is how Canada laid claim to the most miraculous comebacks in modern history.
The Great Turnaround
Before that, however, it is important to know the context.
In January 2025, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives held a poll lead of upwards of 25 points over Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party. Prime Minister Trudeau had been Prime Minister of Canada for nearing a decade and had won three elections but had since become deeply unpopular with by-elections producing results where safe Liberal seats were falling.
The cost-of-living crisis, a housing crisis, and a controversial carbon rebate policy had all turned the tides against Canada’s golden boy and seen Trudeau’s name become almost toxic.
Against this backdrop, the Conservatives seemed poised to win their first majority since the days of Stephen Harper. Polls from 2024 showed a clear supermajority for the Conservatives on 211 seats (out of 343) and just 63 for the Liberals. Canada’s The Walrus magazine noted, Trudeau – and the wider Liberal Party – looked likely to suffer a similar fall from grace as the Conservatives in 1993 when the party who had won 211 seats (ironically the name number Poilievre was on course to get) crashed down to Earth with just two seats.
Poilievre seemed to be a prime minister-in-waiting, with the Conservatives chances of winning standing at 99% for a year and a half.
President Trump
In the aftermath of the results, much political commentary noted how perhaps the most important person on voters minds was not even on the ballot: that of President Donald Trump.
After his election win in November, the President-in-waiting and later President made several overtures at trying to undermine Canada’s sovereignty. Trump had repeatedly called for Canada to join America and become the 51st state, derogatively calling PM Trudeau “Governor”.
On top of the territorial threat between the neighbouring nations, Canada has been specifically targetted by US tariffs of 25% (with an extra 10% for imported goods such as crude oil, natural gas, and electricity). As a massive trading partner who exports about 80% to the United States ($400 billion), it was seen as a malicious assault on Canada.
This was further compounded by Trump’s statements that joining the US and forfeiting their sovereignty could mean tariffs are removed.
Suddenly, a burst of Canadian nationalism blossomed and suddenly becoming associated with Trump was anathema to the Canadian electorate.
This was trouble for Pierre Poilievre, whose populist political viewpoints were too easy to try to attach to those of an attacking force. A “Canada First” slogan and constant “common sense”, anti-woke policies made the two seem more in sync in voters minds.
As Leyland Cecco, who has done some of the greatest pieces of political analysis through the election campaign, noted in The Guardian, “While the Conservative leader’s combative politics have served him well as opposition leader, that same strategy appear to be faltering as nationalism supplants partisanship.” Although Poilievre made attempts to distance himself by calling out tariffs and telling Trump to stay out of the election, the two were too close to not be held against one another.
For his part, Trump seemed almost gleeful at dashing the Conservatives chances.
His effect was not just important in the context of the election but caused a unity to even helped improve the dismal approval ratings of outgoing PM Trudeau, whose popularity – at 22% just weeks before his resignation – had jumped to an impressive 47% by his exit.
The New Man: Mark Carney
Though Trump is viewed as the crucial figure overshadowing this election, the claim he won it alone is unfair to the truly transformative change of leadership.
As noted in the previous paragraph, the deeply unpopular Trudeau would eventually – and against his own wishes – step down, not going on to serve a desired fourth term.
Trudeau’s departure has drawn parallels with President Biden’s decision to step aside the previous year. Yet, unlike when Kamala Harris took the reins in the aftermath, Trudeau’s successor was successful in presenting himself as at distance from his predecessor.
Mark Carney, former Govetnor of the Bank of Canada and later Bank of England, easily won the subsequent leadership contest. While he was seen as the continuity candidate over his closest opponent, Chrystia Freeland – Trudeau’s former so-called “Minister of Everything”-turned-critic after the two fell out when Trudeau wanted to replace her with Carney – he also expressed opposition to some of Trudeau’s policies. He expressed opposition to excessive government spending and a rise in capital gains tax, adding on his soft-launch on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show that the government had “not as focused…as it could be” on the economic issues facing voters in the previous years.
Remarkably, it was unique too as Carney had never previously held elected office. Thus, although he had advised Trudeau behind the scenes on several economic strategies, he was seen as an outsider untarnished by the previous Trudeau years.
Seemingly, the replacement of ‘anybody but Trudeau’ was important. After all, Poilievre was never popular – but he was seen as the lesser of two evils over Trudeau. Shortly after his leadership win, the pollster Angus Reid Institute found 41% believed Carney as the man best suited to be prime minister to Poilievre’s 29%. Moreover, technocratic ex-banker Carney was far more trusted on the economic fallout than career politician Poilievre – after all, Carney is often seen as the man who helped avert the disastrous fallout of the Great Recession that was seen in other major economies.
Perhaps his most important act as Prime Minister was his very first official act: repealing the carbon tax rebate. The controversial levy was scrapped by Carney who noted it was divisive at a time when unity was needed.
“Axe the Tax” had been one of Poilievre’s biggest attacks against the incumbent government, coupled alongside his capitalising of Trudeau’s unpopularity. Within weeks, the two attack points the Conservatives had hammered home for the last few years had been rendered redundant.
Not that Carney did much during his brief honeymoon as just nine days after holding Canada’s top elected office, he called for an election in order to obtain a national mandate.
During the campaign, a patriotic Carney truly emersed himself in Canadian culture. For example, he often used the term Team Canada and wore ice hockey jerseys, both leaning into Canada’s win over the USA in the 4 Nations Face Off final and how Canadian fans had started booing the American anthem.
Moreover, Carney got top endorsements from Canadian icons such as comedy great Michael Myers and folk-music firebrand Neil Young. He too reached across the isle, working closely with Progressive Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford, famous for his “Canada is not for sale” cap.
The end result underscored how voters preferred to be forward-looking with a positive view of Carney rather than reflecting on the past and punishing the Liberals.
The Result
In the end, Carney was able to turn around the party’s prospects, winning 169 seats; a few shy of a majority.
Just a week after Carney became Liberal leader, the 1% chance of winning turned to a 55% chance of a Liberal majority (as it happens, the party was just short of that majority as the polls narrowed as the campaign rolled on). Nonetheless, Carney needed to both obtain a House of Commons seat and needing a nationwide mandate. With the election needed before October and amid a poll surge amid a flurry of Canadian nationalism, Carney took a daring risk – and it paid off.
In terms of a result, it is basically unprecedented. Perhaps the 1983 UK election has the closest resemblance, when Thatcher – once in the double digits behind Labour’s Michael Foot then, while still prime minister, pushed into third by the new SDP – utilised the nationalist boost off the back of the Falklands War. Yet this appears even more impressive as while Thatcher had a year after Falklands on top prior to the election, Carney had just a week’s premiership and a drastic few poll results.
As one top conservative strategtist noted: “Blowing a 25-point lead… is fucking campaign malpractice at the highest fucking level…This campaign is going to be studied for decades as the biggest fucking disaster in terms of having lost a massive lead in ways that were so obvious, with so much information.”
This marked a marked improvement for the Liberals won the popular vote for the first time since 2015. They increased their vote share by 11% to 43.7%, above 40% for the first time since 2000 and the largest vote share won by any party since 1984. In terms of seats, the party were 10 seats short of a majority; they were now three short.
As former Liberal Justice Minister David Lametti proclaimed: “We were dead and buried in December. Now we are going to form a government. We have turned this around thanks to Mark.”
If the inability to seal the election was not bad enough, the night was to get worse for Poilievre who lost his Ontario riding (constituency) for 20 years to the Liberals’s Bruce Fanjoy. His support for the 2022 truckers convoy seemed to have played a role in his defeat. Ironically, the prime minister who was unelected managed to win a seat while the man largely projected to be prime minister a few months ago lost his.
The Economist noted how early polls showed historic high approval ratings for the Conservatives from immigrants (who represent about 25% of the population) but many seemingly switched to Carney by election day.
However, there were highlights for the Conservatives, who won upwards of 20 seats, making significant gains in Toronto (though the Liberals regained the St Paul seat lost to the Conservatives in a by-election last year and also gained a 20-year NDP seat, wiping them out of the 905 area). Another notable victory occurred in Brampton West, where the Conservatives defeated incumbent Health Minister Kamal Khera.
They got their highest popular vote total since 1988. Additionally, the Conservatives will now provide the biggest opposition of any party in modern Canadian history, with Poilievre pledging to continue to hold the government to account.
Perhaps one of the key takeaways is just how energised voters were and the effect this had on such a landmark election.
Turnout is estimated to be 68.7%, the highest total since 1993. Just under 20 million Canadians voted, with the sense of urgency underlined by the record 7.3 million early ballots, including two million in a single day. This marks a 25% increase from 2021, an election that took place during the pandemic.
The framing of this election as decisive in Canada’s future saw the collapse of third party, going against the global trend of party fragmentation.
Indeed, all 59 seats flipped went to the major parties. The Liberals and Conservatives combined vote share went above 80% for the first time in 70 years as the Bloc Quebecois, and to a larger extent, NDP saw their support falter.
The Quebec nationalist party went dropped its seat by double digits when the Liberals were able to break the Quebecois blue wall in the province. Now standing at about 20 seats, they will still have influence as the Liberals will need a partner to ensure legislation passes.
Those arguably tertiary parties too struggled. The Green Party halved their seat count as they lost one of their two seats – Kitchener Central – to the Conservatives while the People’s Party’s vote share fell from 5% in 2021 to 1%.
The worst victim was the NDP, who were squeezed out as many voters flocked to the Liberal Party. The party went from 24 seats to a mere seven, losing the 12 seats required to qualify for party status, meaning they will lose the right to questions in the House of Commons and research grants. In all, they received just 6% of the vote compared to 18% in 2021.
The worst result in history, leader Jagmeet Singh lost his Burnaby Central seat to the Liberals, with preliminary results showing him getting less than a fifth of the vote.
Perhaps this election will go on to mark a change in the post-tariff era. After all, conservatives around the world are having to make a marked distinction between themselves and Trump, something that may play a role in the upcoming Australian election where the right-wing Liberal Party, led by Peter Dutton, had been polling about 10 points ahead of Labor’s Anthony Albanese until the Trump effect had similar results in reversing who was on course for victory.
Although reflecting a new reality, the head of the Abacus polling firm David Coletto, noted that the Canadian result was “absolutely without precedent,” adding: “But to see the honeymoon that followed – and the way that support held, is also unprecedented. I can’t think of other jurisdictions around the world where we’ve seen this complete reset. And this turns on two factors: how unpopular Justin Trudeau was, and how much of a threat and gamechanger Donald Trump has meant to Canada.”
GRIFFIN KAYE.
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