Liberal Leader Carney declares victory at 'hinge moment' in history

OTTAWA — Mark Carney’s Liberal party will form the next federal government, Postmedia projects, with a historic comeback Monday that gives  the party a rare fourth consecutive term. But as of 2 a.m. ET Tuesday, it was still unclear if it would be a minority or a slim majority government. At the time, Liberals led in 167 ridings compared to the Conservatives’ 145, the Bloc Québécois’ 23, the NDP’s 7 and the Green Party’s one. A majority government requires 172 seats. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives made the biggest gain compared to 2021 (when they won 119 seats). But it was not enough to take power from the Liberals who just four months ago appeared poised for a devastating electoral loss. 1:40 a.m. Carney speaks to supporters Liberal Leader Mark Carney promised to govern for all Canadians as he warned of tough times ahead due to the trade war with the United States. Speaking to an elated crowd in Ottawa, Carney congratulated NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, Bloc Québécois chief Yves-François Blanchet, Green leader Elizabeth May and his Conservative rival Pierre Poilievre for a “hard-fought, fair, good campaign”. He also promised to govern for all Canadians, making sure to single out Saskatchewan, Alberta and Quebec during the speech. “My message to every Canadian is this: no matter where you live, no matter what language you speak, no matter how you voted, I will always do my best to represent everyone who calls Canada home,” Carney said. “Over my long career, I have made many mistakes, and I will make more. But I commit to admitting them openly, to correcting them quickly and always learning from them,” he added. Like his campaign, Carney’s speech also focused heavily on U.S. President Donald Trump and his commitment to rewrite Canada’s relationship with its erstwhile closest trading partner and ally. He also promised to deepen relationships with European and Asian countries as Canada strives to play a new “top role” in the world economy. “We are once again at one of those hinge moments of history. Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over,” Carney said. “The system of open global trade anchored by the United States… a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for our country for decades, is over. These are tragedies, but it’s also our new reality,” he added. 1 a.m. Poilievre concedes victory to Liberals, commits to stay on as Conservative leader Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre congratulated Prime Minister Mark Carney for his victory and promised to keep up the fight against Liberals. During a 10-minute speech, Poilievre admitted that his party had to learn some “lessons” from Monday’s defeat to the Liberals. Four months ago, his party was projected to win a large majority government as it held a 20 point lead over the Grits in polls, but the collapse of support for the NDP and Bloc Québécois was enough to drive Liberal support over that of the Conservatives. Despite the loss, Poilievre was firm in his commitment to stay on as leader of the party as he argued that “change takes time”. “To my fellow Conservatives, we have much to celebrate tonight. We’ve gained well over 20 seats. We got the highest share of the vote our party has received since 1988. We denied the NDP and Liberals enough seats to form a coalition government,” Poilievre said. “It will be an honour to continue to fight for you and to be a champion of your cause as we go forward,” he added. At the time of his speech, Poilievre still trailed his Liberal opponent in his Carleton riding by over 2,000 votes. 12:45 a.m. Jagmeet Singh announces resignation as NDP leader after dismal night As the NDP’s official party status is in question, leader Jagmeet Singh announced he would step down from the position he’s held since 2017. In sometimes cheery, sometimes teary speech, Singh said he would resign as NDP leader as soon as an interim leader was appointed. “It’s been the honour of my life to represent the people in front of me,” Singh said in a speech in the newly-redrawn riding of Burnaby—Central. “Obviously, I’m disappointed that we could not win more seats, but I’m not disappointed in our movement. I’m hopeful for our party,” he added. At the time of his speech, Singh was significantly trailing both the Conservatives and the Liberals in the riding he’s held since 2019. At six per cent of the vote and leading in only eight ridings, the NDP appeared set to lose official party status in the House of Commons. 12:20 a.m. Conservative HQ cheers MP Jamil Jivani ripping Premier Doug Ford Conservative Party frustration with Ontario Premier Doug Ford poured into the public eye early Tuesday morning. In a fiery interview on CBC , incumbent Conservative MP Jamil Jivani ripped into the Progressive Conservative leader after weeks of bickering between both camps. “I see Doug Ford as a problem for Ontario and for Canada. I think he’s not doing a great job in running this province and now he’s trying to exercise his influence over other levels of government. And it’s not like this guy is doing anything particularly well,” Jivani said. “We need to be fighting for change and something new and something different, not being a hype man for the Liberal party,” he added. Jivani’s comments earned him cheers and applause from party supporters at the Conservative watch party in Ottawa. 11:35 p.m. NDP maintains sole Quebec seat amid dismal evening The sole remnant of the NDP’s 2011 orange wave in Quebec, Alexandre Boulerice, is projected to win his Montreal riding of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. It will be Boulerice’s fourth term as MP. That’s a silver lining in an otherwise dismal evening to date for the NDP. At this time, Jagmeet Singh’s party has just over five per cent of the vote, roughly one third of the party’s share in the 2021 election. Boulerice is likely to remain the party’s only Quebec MP as Berthier-Maskinongé NDP star candidate Ruth Ellen Brosseau was unable to re-capture the riding she represented from 2011 to 2019. 10:25 p.m. Liberals win election, but majority or minority government still unclear Liberal Leader Mark Carney will be Canada’s next prime minister, Postmedia projects, sealing one of the most dramatic reversals in political fortunes for a federal party in Canadian history. But it’s still too early to tell if the Liberals’ fourth term will be atop a majority or a minority government. Before Parliament was dissolved, the Liberals held 160 seats, the Conservatives held 119, the Bloc Québécois had 32, the NDP had 24 and the Green Party held two seats. With 343 seats in play this election, the Liberals need 172 seats to win a majority. The Liberals’ win is a stunning reversal of the party’s fortunes. Mere months ago, polls suggested the Conservatives held a 20 point lead over the Liberals and seemed poised to win a supermajority in the 2025 election. But then deeply unpopular Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation, Mark Carney took over the party and U.S. President Donald Trump launched a trade war with Canada that upended the political landscape. By the time the campaign began on March 23, polls suggested the Liberals’ support had surged and slightly surpassed Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. 9:56 p.m. People’s Party of Canada leader loses bid for Beauce seat… again Third time is not the charm for People’s Party of Canada (PPC) leader Maxime Bernier, who lost his third straight election in Quebec’s Beauce riding to the Conservative Party he once unsuccessfully sought to lead. Projections suggest Conservative candidate Jason Groleau will be the new MP for Beauce, replacing his predecessor Richard Lehoux who retired from politics in late March. Bernier was the Conservative MP for Beauce from 2006 until he quit the party and founded the PPC in 2018. He then lost his bid for re-election in 2019, 2021 and this year. 9:30 p.m. Polls closed everywhere except B.C. and Yukon The vast majority of polling stations are now closed, meaning the fate of most candidates this election is sealed. Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories represent 266 of the 343 seats up for grabs tonight. From this point on, results will flow in quickly and the composition of the next Parliament will start becoming clearer. Voting continues until 10 p.m. Eastern in British Columbia and Yukon. 9:15 p.m. Elections Canada’s website back up and running In the “you had one job” category, Elections Canada’s website is back up and running after over an hour of outages or choppy service. Last-minute voters who are looking for information on where to vote in their riding can now use the agency’s search tool. Polls in Ontario and Quebec are set to close in 15 minutes. 9:01 p.m. Halifax finally has a new MP Haligonians, who have been without a member of Parliament since Liberal Andy Fillmore resigned to run for Halifax mayor in August, now have a new representative in the House of Commons. Liberal candidate Shannon Miedema, a director of the environment and climate change for the city of Halifax, is projected win the riding covering Nova Scotia’s capital. The riding will have gone at least eight months without an MP. 8:33 p.m. Conservative HQ cheers early Atlantic Canada results William Van Lagen drove to the Conservative election party in Ottawa from Oxford, Ont., and says he’s hopeful for the party’s chances. “It’s going to be close,” he says. “It’s going to be real close.” He says he believes the heights Poilievre reached some 18-months ago was artificial. “We just got to slug it out now.” Supporters watching early results roll in Atlantic Canada broke into cheers as they saw parts of the electoral map turn blue. Winning the region is key to a Liberal majority victory. At one point, Conservative supporters watching the results broke into a chant of “bring it home.” — Stephanie Taylor 8:20 p.m. Betting markets moving away from a Liberal majority Initial results trickling in from Atlantic Canada suggest the area may not be a wash for the Liberals, and bettors are reacting quickly. Over on Polymarket — an online prediction market where users (except in Ontario) can bet on electoral outcomes — the value of bets on a Liberal majority has plummeted from 59 per cent to around 25 per cent since polls starting closing. On the flip side, bets on a Liberal minority and a Conservative minority have surged and are roughly tied at around 30 per cent apiece, suggesting Polymarket bettors increasingly believe Canada is headed to a third consecutive minority government. Odds for a Conservative majority remain low at 11 per cent, per the online prediction market. 7:30 p.m. — Polls close in all of Atlantic Canada Voting results will start rolling in a touch faster now that polling stations have closed in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. All together, the Atlantic provinces represent 32 ridings in total, 23 of which were held by the Liberals when Parliament was dissolved in March. 7 p.m. — Polls close in Newfoundland First results will begin trickling in as polling offices in Newfoundland closed at 7 p.m. Eastern. The province features seven of the country’s 343 seats. 5 p.m. — Millions of Canadians head to polls The election has been deemed by Liberals , Conservatives , pollsters , unions and even former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien as the most consequential vote in a lifetime amid Canada’s trade row with its closest economic ally, the United States. Polling suggests the campaign is uncommon in that it is largely dominated by only two parties, Mark Carney’s Liberals and Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, while smaller parties such as the NDP, Bloc Québécois and Green Party might have a “catastrophic” election night . The final Leger poll of the election suggested Carney’s party (43 per cent) maintained a four-point lead over the Conservatives (39 per cent), a gap that stayed roughly the same throughout the five-week campaign. “You have two heavyweight political opponents slugging it out. Nobody’s giving an inch, but no one’s getting one either,” Leger executive vice-president Andrew Enns told National Post Friday. In a separate interview on Friday, Leger President Jean-Marc Léger said he had “never seen such a stable campaign” in his lifetime. “Such a useless campaign is also unprecedented,” Léger told the Journal de Montréal , adding that no issue seemed to move the needle as much as Trump’s tariff and annexation threats. He noted that the unprecedented stability in polling numbers suggested that most voters had already made up their minds before the campaign even started. The fact the Liberals are perceived frontrunners in the race points to a stunning reversal of fortunes for the party. Before former prime minister Justin Trudeau resigned in early January, the Conservatives had held a roughly 15 to 20 point lead over the Grits for over one year and many observers believed it a foregone conclusion that Poilievre would be Canada’s next prime minister. But by the time the election began on March 23, the Carney-led Liberals had made a “remarkable comeback” and taken their first polling lead over the Tories since 2023. Polling stations across the country will be open for 12 hours starting at 8:30 a.m. local time in the Atlantic and Central time zones, 9:30 a.m. in the Eastern time zone, 7:30 a.m. in the Mountain time zone and 7 a.m. Pacific time. If you have not received your voter information card by mail, you can see where to cast a ballot in their riding on Elections Canada’s website here . Eligible voters who are not registered can do so at their local polling station. Elections Canada said on Tuesday that a record 7.28 million Canadian s cast a ballot during early voting last weekend, a 25 per cent jump from the same period during the 2021 federal election. That suggests that this year’s turnout could exceed that of the 2021 federal election, when only 62.6 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballot (down nearly five per cent from the 2019 vote). National Post cnardi@postmedia.com

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