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Next general election in Canada From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 2025 Canadian federal election will take place to elect members of the House of Commons to the 45th Canadian Parliament. Under the fixed-date provisions of the Canada Elections Act, the election would be held on October 25, 2025, but it may be called earlier 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.
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343 seats in the House of Commons 172 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 New electoral districts to be used for this election | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This will be the first election to use a new 343-seat electoral map based on the 2021 Canadian census.
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 Minister Justin 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 Conservatives won the popular vote and continued as the Official Opposition.[2][e] That September 27, Annamie Paul resigned as the Green Party leader, citing lack of party support.[3] Her resignation came into effect that November 10.[4]
The election is scheduled to take place on October 20, 2025, 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.[5] In addition to the statutory fixed election date provisions, Canada has a constitutional requirement specified in both section 50 of the Constitution Act, 1867 and section 4 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that elections for the House of Commons must be called no more than five years after the writs for the preceding election are returned.
The election may 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. Early elections are more likely to occur during minority governments because the prime minister does not control a majority in the House of Commons and thus is more likely to lose votes in the House.[6][7][8]
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 the Hindu festival of Diwali, as well as municipal elections in Alberta.[9][10] Moving the election date would also have resulted in 80 members of Parliament first elected on October 21, 2019, meeting the requirement of 6 years of service to receive a parliamentary retirement pension.[11] The Official Opposition Conservative Party argued that the pension eligibility was the real motivation for the change, an accusation which the government denied.[12] Of the 80 MPs who would have become eligible for a pension if the election date was moved later, 32 were Conservatives, 22 were Liberals, 19 were Bloc Québécois, 6 were New Democrats, and 1 was an independent.[13] The date change was unlikely to proceed with all opposition parties against the change; NDP MP Lisa Barron confirmed she would propose a committee amendment to leave the fixed election date as October 20, 2025, and minister of democratic institutions Dominic LeBlanc stated he would "happily respect the will of this committee" if it had amended the bill.[12]
On January 6, 2025, the Parliament of Canada was prorogued by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,[14] which resulted in the bill dying on the order paper.[15]
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.[16]
| Name | Ideology | Position | Leader | 2021 result | Current standing | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes (%) | Seats | ||||||
| Liberal | Liberalism Social liberalism |
Centre to centre-left | Justin Trudeau (outgoing) |
160 / 338 |
153 / 338 | ||
| Conservative | Conservatism Social conservatism Economic liberalism |
Centre-right to right-wing | Pierre Poilievre | 119 / 338 |
120 / 338 | ||
| Bloc Québécois | Quebec nationalism Quebec sovereigntism Social democracy |
Centre-left | Yves-François Blanchet | 32 / 338 |
33 / 338 | ||
| New Democratic | Social democracy Democratic socialism |
Centre-left to left-wing | Jagmeet Singh | 25 / 338 |
25 / 338 | ||
| Green | Green politics | Elizabeth May | 2 / 338 |
2 / 338 | |||
| Independents | N/A | 0 / 338 |
3 / 338 | ||||
| Vacant | N/A | 2 / 338 | |||||
Canada's electoral system, a "first-past-the-post" system, is formally referred to as a single-member plurality system. The candidate with more votes than any other candidate in an electoral district (referred to in Canada as a riding) wins a seat in the 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 prestige than the other opposition parties.[citation needed]
An absolute majority of the votes cast in the last election is not needed to have power and is rarely achieved. As well, the party in power does not need to obtain a majority of the seats in the House of Commons – and under the current multi-party system, quite often does not achieve that. However, to pass bills, the governing party must have support of a majority of MPs. Without majority support, the government falls and a new party is named government or an election has to be held. Three parties have achieved power at the federal level in Canada's history: the Liberals (active since 1867); the original Conservatives / Progressive Conservatives (1867–2003); and the modern Conservatives (since 2003).[citation needed]
The Constitution Act of 1867 requires that federal electoral districts undergo a redistribution following each decennial Canadian census.[17] Using the 2021 Canadian census population results, the 2022 redistribution process began in October 2021 and was completed in September 2023.[18]
On October 15, 2021, the chief electoral officer announced that, based on the formula in the Constitution Act, 1867, then in force, the allocation would result in an increase to 342 seats.[19] This included a reduction of Quebec's allocation from 78 to 77 seats. The government tabled legislation on March 24, 2022, to prevent Quebec (or any other province) from losing any seats relative to the number of seats it was apportioned in 2012 redistribution.[20][21] The Preserving Provincial Representation in the House of Commons Act amended rule 2 of subsection 51(1) of the Constitution Act, 1867, commonly known as the "Grandfather Clause".[22][23] The bill passed the House of Commons on June 15, 2022,[24] the Senate on June 21,[25] and received royal assent on June 23, 2022.[26] The chief electoral officer announced the new allocation of seats on July 8, 2022, which would result in an increase to 343 seats.[27]
Pursuant to the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act as amended, ten federal electoral boundary commissions were established, one for each province, on November 1, 2021.[28] The boundary-drawing process commenced upon the release of census data in February 2022. Quebec's commission adjusted its work to be based on a 78-seat allocation in July 2022. The respective commissions completed their work and finalized new electoral boundary sets on a rolling basis, beginning with the Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island commissions on February 14, 2023,[29][30] and finishing with the Ontario commission on July 8, 2023.[31] The chief electoral officer then used the final reports of the electoral boundary commissions to formalize a representation order, which was proclaimed on September 22, 2023.[32]
The changes to federal electoral district boundaries took effect on April 23, 2024.[33][19][32] If the election had been called before then, it would have occurred under the previous electoral district boundaries, which had been in effect since the 2015 federal election.[34][35]
| Province or territory | Representation orders | Average population per electoral district |
Change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 2023 | |||
| Ontario | 121 | 122 | 116,590 | 1  |
| Quebec | 78 | 78 | 108,998 |  |
| British Columbia | 42 | 43 | 116,300 | 1 |
| Alberta | 34 | 37 | 115,206 | 3 |
| Manitoba | 14 | 14 | 95,868 | |
| Saskatchewan | 14 | 14 | 80,893 | |
| Nova Scotia | 11 | 11 | 88,126 | |
| New Brunswick | 10 | 10 | 77,561 | |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 7 | 7 | 72,935 | |
| Prince Edward Island | 4 | 4 | 38,583 | |
| Northwest Territories | 1 | 1 | 41,070 | |
| Nunavut | 1 | 1 | 36,858 | |
| Yukon | 1 | 1 | 40,232 | |
| Canada | 338 | 343 | 107,848 | 5 |
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.[36]
| Party | MPs | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 actual result | 2021 notional result | Change | ||
| Liberal | 160 | 157 |  3 | |
| Conservative | 119 | 126 | 7 | |
| Bloc Québécois | 32 | 34 | 2 | |
| New Democratic | 25 | 24 | 1 | |
| Green | 2 | 2 | | |
| Total seats | 338 | 343 | 5 | |
As of January 2025[update], 45 MPs have announced they will not run in the 2025 federal election.
| Party | MPs standing down | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 election[f] | Current | ||
| Liberal | 29 | 29 | |
| Conservative | 8 | 7 | |
| New Democratic | 5 | 5 | |
| Bloc Québécois | 3 | 3 | |
| Independent | 0 | 1 | |
| Total | 46 | 46 | |
| Member of Parliament | Electoral district | Province or territory | Date announced | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gerald Soroka[82] | Yellowhead | Alberta | June 22, 2024 | |
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