1 week Ago By Star staff and wire services
Canadians are hitting the polls on April 28 to determine who will become the next prime minister of the country. From voting early to knowing what to take with you on election day, here’s everything you need to know about casting your ballot in the federal election. On election day, polls will be open for 12 hours, with voting hours staggered so that the results come in at around the same time across the country, according to Elections Canada.
Polls open at 9:30 a.m. and close at 9:30 p.
m. for the GTA and much of Ontario in the Eastern Time zone. A couple hugs near the scene the day after a driver killed multiple people during a Filipino community festival Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Vancouver, British Columbia.
EDMONTON—Carnage at a Filipino street festival in Vancouver cast a pall over the final day of the federal election campaign, as party leaders expressed shock and sadness for those killed when a man drove a vehicle into a crowd on Saturday night. Suddenly reeling, campaign organizers scrambled Sunday to rearrange schedules and offer condolences amidst national grieving. Some parties cancelled and delayed events, and tried to strike the right balance between showing sympathy and continuing the campaign, with leaders racing around the country to cover ground and rally support in the last hours before the last votes are cast Monday.
Vancouver police have reported that 11 people were killed — their ages ranging from five to 65 years old — and dozens more injured after a man drove into the crowd at the Lapu Lapu Day festival on Saturday night, in what interim police chief Steve Rai called “the darkest day in Vancouver’s history.” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, left to right, Liberal Leader Mark Carney and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh participate in the English-language federal leaders’ debate in Montreal on April 17, 2025. OTTAWA—Election 2025 is the campaign that fun forgot.
Where the winner might just be the most boring. Where the music has been forgettable. Where no snappy leaders’ debate exchange and no political ad truly captured the zeitgeist.
It’s a campaign that saw Liberals and Conservatives flip their hope and fear scripts, that ends with New Democrats and the separatist Bloc Québécois fighting for relevance, and reveals a Canadian electorate sharply divided, but seemingly less polarized than during the 2021 pandemic campaign. That vote saw rock-throwing and visceral anti-establishment eruptions against candidates. In this campaign, there is unity of purpose vis-à-vis the threat of U.
S. President Donald Trump. The collective goal is to survive the next four years.
Where Canadians sharply differ is on exactly how to become a stronger, and more independent country, and who has the best strategy to ensure that. Well, that was illuminating. I spent three weeks following (in the virtual sense) the campaign speeches of Canada’s national political leaders.
For the uninitiated, those leaders are the Liberal’s Mark Carney, the Conservative’s Pierre Poilievre and the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh. As we said at the outset, which seems so long ago, “Just the facts, men.” And yet in rallies and responses to questions from journalists, some gave a whole lot more.
So did the campaign workers tasked with responding to the Star’s emails when their leaders strayed beyond the confines of factuality or purposely engaged in verbal theatrics. Whoever wins the federal election on Monday, their task — beyond resetting the relationship with U.S.
President Donald Trump, navigating Canada out of an impending economic crisis, addressing affordability and safety concerns — must be to reach out to those Canadians who did not vote for them. Although the main party leaders portray themselves as figures who can heal a divided nation, they spent the campaign’s last few days striking a decidedly more partisan tone. Liberal Leader Mark Carney described Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in his stump speech as someone not typically onside with the other leaders.
He said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was someone who “draws his inspiration from Donald Trump” and “whose first instinct when our nation was attacked was to call Canada stupid.” Poilievre did call Canadians “stupid,” but it was in early January well before Trump’s threats. While Carney’s attacks against Poilievre are personal: “He has a reflex to cut, destroy, and divide.
” Poilievre attacks the wider group. “A Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal,” he often repeats. It’s election day in Canada, and voters will choose a new government.
Last month, and kicking off a 36-day campaign that saw politicians cross the country, outlining their vision for Canada’s future and asking for your vote. At dissolution on March 23, Canada’s Parliament had 338 seats. The Liberal party, which had been in power since 2015, held 152 seats.
The Conservatives, Canada’s official opposition, had 119 seats. The Bloc, which only runs candidates in Quebec, had 33 seats; the NDP had 24; the Green Party had 2 seats. Three independents sat in Parliament and several seats were vacant.
There are now 343 seats in Parliament. Canadians who did not cast their ballot early have about 12 hours today to vote in a local polling place to elect the member of parliament who will represent their riding. The Star’s coverage of today’s election will include news, key races, guides on how to find your polling place and live results, starting early this evening.
Find the latest news right here. Here’s how to . And you’ll find the Star’s No question this is a decisive election.
The real question: On voting day, will you be one of the decision-makers? Or will you be one of the delegators, relying on others to decide on your behalf while you are relegated to the role of spectator on the sidelines? Democracy is about who decides. Politicians presume to make big decisions, but the biggest decision is still ours to make: The power to pick the person and party who wield decision-making power on our behalf remains firmly in the hands of voters like you and me. Unless we let it escape our grasp.
That’s what distinguishes Canadian democracy from autocracy, or the authoritarianism that is rising around the world and encroaching awfully close to home. We may not always like the people in power, but we the people empower the politicians — and we can disempower them. Here’s what you need to know to vote today: Polls will be open for 12 hours, with staggered voting hours to allow results to come in around the same time across the country.
In Ontario and across most of the Eastern time zone, that’s 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.
m. Bring Canadian government-issued ID that includes your name, photo and current address (like a driver’s license or health card). You’re also encouraged to bring your voter information card to make the voting process as smooth as possible.
Or you can bring two pieces of ID, both showing your name, and at least one with your current address (such as a utility bill and student ID, or voter information card and bank statement). If you don’t have ID, you can still vote. You’ll need to declare your identity and address in writing and be accompanied by someone assigned to your polling station who can vouch for you.
The voucher needs to prove their identity and address, Elections Canada added. You don’t need a voter information card to vote, but you need to be registered. You have the option of registering when you go to vote.
After a rainy weekend in Toronto, voters should have no issue walking to cast their ballots. Monday is set to bring a mix of sun and cloud, with a daytime high of 19 C, according to Environment Canada. And election workers are legally required to supply voters with blacklead pencils — but you can also mark your ballot with your own pen, if you’d like.
See what each party is pledging during the federal election campaign. Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh have lots of ideas for Canada. The Star tracked it with our election promise tracker.
From tariffs and taxes to housing and crime, the Star broke down the platforms, policies and commitments each party made while pitching their vision for the country in the last 36 days. We’ll outline a selection here throughout the day. For the full list, I’m Aaliyah, a producer here at the Star and tonight, your touchpoint in the comment section.
Today, Canadians are heading to polls and the Star wants to know what’s on your mind. How are you spending the day, and what will you be thinking about as results start to roll in? Let’s start a discussion in the comment section below, and I’ll answer as many questions as I can. Polls have opened in the rest of Atlantic Canada.
All polling stations will be open for 12 hours. Polls have opened in Newfoundland and Labrador. All polling stations will be open for 12 hours.
U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social a dubious Election Day message to Canadians, one which likely serves only as a reminder of the Liberal Party’s preferred ballot questions (and for those asking, because it is overt is not likely to be considered by any election oversight authorities as foreign interference.
) And remember, Trump said last week that he was not just “trolling” Canada with his annexation threats, threats which all Canadian political leaders have rejected as non-starters. Readers can judge for themselves: Trump wrote: “Good luck to the Great people of Canada. Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st.
State of the United States of America. (sic for all the grammatical errors.) “No more artificially drawn line from many years ago.
Look how beautiful this land mass would be. Free access with NO BORDER. ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES.
IT WAS MEANT TO BE! America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!” The social media message reprises most of Trump’s usual grievances about Canada. We did a fact check on these, OTTAWA—Close races, dramatic turn arounds and leaders with their futures on the line.
With Canadians heading to the polls on Monday, here are 10 ridings to watch. The first polls to close in the 45th general election will close in Newfoundland. And the riding of Central Newfoundland could offer the first hint of who will be the next prime minister.
The riding, previously called Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, was decided in the last election with just 281 votes splitting the winner Conservative Clifford Small from Liberal Scott Sims. Sims isn’t on the ballot again, instead, Lynette Powell, a family physician and educator, is running for the Liberals. She stood beside Liberal Leader Mark Carney in Gander, Newfoundland, when he visited early in the campaign.
Elections Canada signage is pictured near an advance polling station in Ottawa, on April 18, 2025. OTTAWA—Close races, dramatic turn arounds and leaders with their futures on the line. With Canadians heading to the polls on Monday, here are 10 ridings to watch.
The first polls to close in the 45th general election will close in Newfoundland. And the riding of Central Newfoundland could offer the first hint of who will be the next prime minister. The riding, previously called Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, was decided in the last election with just 281 votes splitting the winner Conservative Clifford Small from Liberal Scott Sims.
Sims isn’t on the ballot again, instead, Lynette Powell, a family physician and educator, is running for the Liberals. She stood beside Liberal Leader Mark Carney in Gander, Newfoundland, when he visited early in the campaign. In 2015, when the Liberals won their majority, they swept every seat in Atlantic Canada.
Last October, the party was 12 points or more behind the Conservatives according to polling from Abacus Data. The most recent poll from Abacus shows that lead has essentially flipped, with the Liberals now up by 10 percentage points. If Central Newfoundland flips back to the Liberals, it could be a sign of more to come across Atlantic Canada.
With less than a week to go until election day, Canada's five main political parties have released their costed platforms. Canadian Press reporter Dylan Robertson walks through some of what the parties are pitching to voters. (April 26, 2025 / The Canadian Press) The New Brunswick riding of Miramichi-Grand Lake has long flipped between blue and red.
In 2015, when Justin Trudeau’s Liberals swept Atlantic Canada, the riding returned to the red tent and remained there until 2021. That’s when the Conservatives launched former New Brunswick minister Jake Stewart into the riding — and won. Miramichi-Grand Lake was leaning Conservative again in the weeks leading up to the election call.
But Stewart, a close Atlantic ally of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, became implicated in a series of media reports in which former staffers , and he stepped down. The result? A toss-up riding that could favour the Liberals once more. True three-way races are rare in Canadian politics, but this town on the north shore of the St.
Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec City, has regularly been a race between the Liberals, Conservatives and Bloc Québécois. In the 2021 election, the gap between the first place Bloc Québécois candidate René Villemure and the third place Liberal candidate was 416 votes with only 83 votes separating Villemure from the Conservative candidate Yves Lévesque. Villemure is attempting to hold onto his seat and Lévesque is again hoping to take the seat for the Conservatives.
The Liberals are offering up former diplomat Caroline Desrochers. No Liberal government, let alone a majority is possible without the party getting a substantial number of Quebec’s 78 seats. When Justin Trudeau took the party to a majority government in 2015, it included 40 Quebec seats, but Trois-Rivières still remained out of grasp.
Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet has been making the case to his supporters in recent days that with Carney likely to win, people can afford to come back to his party. Abacus Data’s latest poll gives the Liberals a three-point lead over the Bloc in Quebec, but that number has been sliding downward, it was a seven-point lead just a week ago. Abacus surveyed 2,000 people in that latest poll from April 18 to 21, which showed the three-point lead for the Liberals in Quebec.
A similar random sample would produce a margin of error of 2.3 per cent 19 times out of 20. After years of rapid population growth in the Toronto suburb, Milton is now split into two seats and one of Doug Ford’s former cabinet ministers Parm Gill hopes to claim it for Poilievre.
Gill was the minister of red tape reduction in Ford’s cabinet, before he announced his resignation in early 2024 so he could seek the federal seat. Gill was an MP in nearby Brampton—Springdale from 2011 to 2015. Local lawyer Kristina Tesser Derksen is running for the Liberals.
Gill’s departure from Ford’s cabinet was one of many points of tension between Poilievre and Ford’s provincial Conservatives. Those tensions burst into the spotlight during the campaign with Ford’s campaign manager Kory Teneycke accusing the Poilievre team of “campaign malpractice.” Ford insisted he supports the federal Conservatives, but said Teneycke’s opinion should be valued.
With no incumbent and an entirely new map, the riding is difficult to predict; it includes parts of the former Milton riding, which sent Liberal Adam van Koeverden to Parliament and Wellington Halton Hills, which reliably sent Conservative Michael Chong to Ottawa. For the Liberals, Markham-Unionville was a long sought after riding, one of the few patches of Conservative Blue in a sea of red across the GTA. When Trudeau won his majority in 2015, the Liberals were kept out of this riding just north of Toronto.
That changed in 2021 when Liberal Paul Chiang won the riding for the party over Conservative Bob Saroya. Chiang was set to try and hold onto the riding, but resigned in the early days of the election after it was revealed he told people they could collect a bounty at the Chinese consulate for another Conservative candidate Joe Tay. Tay was a democracy activist in Hong Kong and Chinese authorities have put up a reward for his arrest.
Following Chiang’s resignation, the Liberals brought in Peter Yuen, a former Toronto deputy police chief. His candidacy also raised questions about foreign interference after the Globe and Mail revealed he had attended events in Beijing at the invitation of China’s Communist Party. U.
S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada is doing major damage in Windsor West. The tariffs Trump has imposed on the Canadian auto industry hit first in Windsor, with the layoff of nearly 4,000 workers for two weeks earlier this month.
Those workers are now back on the job, but the tariffs threaten the entire industry across southwestern Ontario. NDP candidate Brian Masse has represented the riding for more than two decades, after first being elected in 2002 and surviving all seven elections since. But some of those contests have been closer than others and the Liberals hope that the Trump threat can help them win the riding.
To that end, they are running a foe from Masse’s past, local lawyer Richard Pollock who ran against him in the 2002 campaign. Carney came to the community to announce a new $2 billion fund for the auto sector, but NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has also visited and promised to stand with workers. But the dagger still hangs over the community, as Trump emphasized again on Thursday, that he is prepared to raise tariffs on cars made outside the U.
S. This freshly-created B.C.
riding is flush with the Canada-U.S. border — and among one of the regions in the province most vulnerable to American tariffs.
That alone has made it a riding to watch in an election where Trump has taken centre stage. But the riding, held by the Conservatives under the previous boundaries, could potentially change hands thanks to Poilievre’s team. That’s because Conservatives rejected the candidacy of longtime B.
C. MLA Mike de Jong in favour of Sukhman Gill, a 25-year-old political newcomer. The decision divided local Conservatives over whether they will back Gill or de Jong, who is running as an independent.
Ed Fast, the retiring Conservative incumbent in the area, hasn’t helped matters by endorsing de Jong and sharply criticizing his party for “allowing faceless party officials” to parachute in candidates. The Liberals are hoping this tension will allow them to rise through the middle with their candidate, a former reporter in the community, Kevin Gillies. In one of the biggest ridings in the country, the Liberals are hoping to put themselves back on the electoral map in a province that has shut them out for two straight campaigns.
They were shut out in Saskatchewan in the 2021 and 2019 elections and took just one seat in the 2015 election, as Ralph Goodale, now Canada’s high commissioner in London, held his seat. Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River was altered in the most recent boundary realignment shrinking the total number of voters and slightly altering the demographics of the riding, making it one largely of Indigenous communities. The Liberals are hoping to take the riding with Harold “Buckley” Belanger, a former provincial politician who sat in the Saskatchewan legislature as both a New Democrat and a Liberal.
He is being challenged by Conservative Jim Lemaigre, another former provincial politician and NDP candidate Doug Racine, a lawyer and military veteran. All three parties have held the seat at one point over the last two decades. When Trudeau exited the stage many Liberals, who had decided to step down, rethought their decision and decided to run for the party again.
Anita Anand in Oakville, Sean Fraser in Nova Scotia, Wayne Long in New Brunswick are among many Liberals who came back to run under Mark Carney. Amarjeet Sohi left federal politics in 2019, after failing to win his seat in Alberta’s capital city — a seat he won in 2015 with a razor-thin 92-vote margin. A former Trudeau minister, he lost to Conservative MP Tim Uppal, the same person he bested in 2015.
But Sohi did not leave politics entirely, running and winning a race to become Edmonton’s mayor in 2021. He is on leave from his role while he contests the vote in Edmonton Southeast. Sohi is running against lawyer and Conservative newcomer Jagsharan Singh Mahal.
A leader’s riding in a federal election is usually a foregone conclusion, but on election night it will be worth watching Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh’s ridings closely. Carney is running for office for the first time in the suburban Ottawa riding of Nepean, a riding he picked to run in only a few days before kicking off the election at Rideau Hall. His challenger — Conservative Barbara Bal — has deep roots in the community as an Ottawa police officer and a reservist in the Canadian Armed forces.
The Liberals held the riding before the election, but disqualified the sitting MP Chandra Arya from running again for reasons that were never announced. Next door to Nepean, is Poilievre’s long-held riding of Carleton. Poilievre has been a member of Parliament for 20 years, with his riding boundaries switching a few times during that tenure.
The Toronto Star reported this week that the Conservative party has pushed additional resources to Carleton over concerns his victory may not be locked down. Ontario polls show the Liberals with a substantial lead in the province and Poilievre’s riding is home to many civil servants who might fear potential cuts. Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy has been knocking on doors for months trying to take Poilievre’s seat.
The Conservatives told the Star that while they take nothing for granted, they fully expect Poilievre to remain the MP for Carleton. The toughest battle for a major party leader is likely in Singh’s British Columbia riding Burnaby Central. The NDP have seen support crater this election, hovering below 10 per cent in most national polls.
The riding’s boundaries were changed in the redistribution that brought the House of Commons up to 343 seats. Burnaby Central took on more Liberal friendly areas, but the bigger issue for Singh is his party’s national decline. Polls are now open across Ontario in the eastern time zone.
Voters will have until 9:30pm EST to cast their ballots. Of the 343 electoral seats up for grabs, Ontario makes up the biggest share with 122. Timing, as they say, is everything.
Despite Trump’s Truth Social post today again asserting Canada should be a state, it seems the U.S. Administration is respecting other kinds of protocols - and dealing with Canada as a sovereign nation, for now at least.
The U.S. Embassy announced this morning that Trump’s handpicked ambassador to Canada will present himself to Gov.
-Gen. Mary Simon to have his credentials recognized on Tuesday, the day after the Canadian election. is a veteran Michigan politician and was Trump’s former ambassador to the Netherlands.
The 2025 saw voters turn out in record numbers for advance polls. Elections Canada said that 7.3 million people cast ballots early on the four days of advance polling between Friday, April 18 and Monday, April 21.
That’s up 25 per cent from the 5.8 million people who took part in advance voting in the 2021 federal election. If you’re voting today, visit the Elections Canada website to .
Here’s . Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, right, and his wife Anaida Poilievre depart a polling station after voting in Ottawa on Monday, April 28, 2025. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Ana Poilievre just cast their votes this morning in his riding of Carleton, where the ballot is unusually long, with some 91 candidates listed.
It’s already reportedly causing delays there. Elections Canada has modified the counting rules to allow the counting of advance ballots in this riding to begin six hours before polls close today. In the rest of the country, because of the high turnout at advance polls, Elections Canada has provided for counting to begin of those votes two hours before polls close.
Preliminary results from today’s election will be published on as polls close across the country. The first results are expected to become available after 7 p.m.
Given the high turnout for advanced voting, ballots cast during advanced polls can start being counted two hours before polls close tonight. In Carleton, where there are 91 candidates on the ballot, the counting of votes cast during advanced polls will begin six hours before polls close. Wait times are short as voters stream in and out of Swansea Town Hall Community Centre in Taiaiako’n - Parkdale - High Park.
After casting her ballot, Connie Dejak told the Star she’s committed to voting in every election, but that it’s especially important this time around as she feels Canada has become “invisible” on the world stage. If there’s a lack of “strong leadership at the helm,” Dejak said she believed there were two paths Canada could go down as a country: “We either become completely nonexistent, or we become very vulnerable to what’s going on in the United States,” she said. “For the United States to believe that we don’t have a voice, we don’t have an identity, we don’t have a position within the world stage, is shocking,” said Dejak.
“The level of ignorance to who we are makes me very nervous and compels me to vote even more.” One resident is throwing their support behind an alternative candidate. A resident in Toronto’s Taiaiako’n—Parkdale–High Park riding is throwing their support behind an alternative candidate.
The Liberals, Conservatives and NDP have each laid out distinct plans aimed at addressing affordability, new home construction and tenant protections. The Star tracked these promises and more in an . Here are their housing promises at a glance: The full promise tracker also covers commitments on jobs, tariffs, defence and the environment.
. Here is the view at just past 8 a.m local time from a busy intersection in Port Moody, B.
C, where just over a dozen New Democrats and incumbent Bonita Zarrillo are waving signs - including one that says “BC Votes NDP to Stop Conservatives” - at passing cars. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is expected to make a whistlestop shortly. It’ll be his final public event before election night.
People here are optimistic about their chances in what is expected to be a tight three-way race in a riding that has been decided by only a few percentage points in every election since 2015. And they’re getting some encouraging signs with supportive honks from passersby. Conservative and Liberal party leaders have responded on social media to U.
S. President Donald Trumps comments earlier Monday on Truth Social. Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre posted to X telling Trump to “stay out of our election.
” “The only people who will decide the future of Canada are Canadians at the ballot box,” he wrote, adding that Canada will never be the 51st state. Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney posted a video to X addressing Canadians anxiety over current relations with the United States and the ongoing Tariff War. “This is Canada and we decide what happens here.
Let’s choose to be united and strong.” Neither NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Green Party Co-Leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault nor Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-F. Blanchet have yet to post a response to Trumps most recent comments.
It was a busy morning at the polling station inside the Sheraton Hotel on Queen Street West, in the Spadina — Harbourfront riding, staff told the Star. By the afternoon the crowd had thinned out and the short line was moving swiftly. Trouble from south of the border was top of mind for many voters as they entered the booth.
“The rise of fascism in other countries has been very terrifying, and I think it’d be irresponsible of me as a Canadian to not go out of my way and vote,” Nuvya Babbar told the Star. “As Canadians, we need to be leaders on the international stage when it comes to showing the world that we will not bend to the rise of fascism and these really toxic populist ideologies that sow a lot of discontent.” Another voter, Matt Brown, echoed that sentiment, saying “picking a candidate that is best suited to deal with the United States and President Trump,” was his main priority.
Although she’s lived in the same home for 16 years, Allyson Bradley said she received two voter information cards with two different polling stations. But when she arrived at Saw Mills Valley Public School in her riding of Mississauga-Erin Mills this morning at 9:30 a.m.
she was one of many people told they were not registered to vote and had to re-register. “It was absolute chaos. The line of people waiting to re register probably had 40 or 50 people in it,” Bradley said.
“About three quarters of us got rerouted to the you have to re register line, and I waited almost an hour to register.” Bradley said when she did finally get to vote, she kept receiving misinformation from poll workers, like, “you had to mark your ballots with a black marker or it didn’t count, and there were, of course, no black markers at any of the little voting booths.” Bradley’s husband, who also received two different voter information cards, took part in the advanced polls and had no issues.
The Star reached out to Elections Canada for comment but has not received a response. Voters are designated to vote at the polling station stated on their voter information card. They can also find their designated polling station using BURNABY - After spending much of the election campaign working to keep staffers’ morale high in the face of grim polls, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh paused his campaign Sunday to confront a shocking tragedy — a vehicle attack on a Vancouver community event that left 11 people dead.
Singh left the Lapu Lapu Day event, a Filipino cultural festival, about ten minutes before the attack took place. He’d taken photos with families and danced with festival goers. “I keep on thinking about the joy.
I was there literally minutes before this happened, and I can’t stop thinking about, how much happiness was there, how much it was a family event,” Singh said in Penticton, B.C. on Sunday while holding back tears.
“People were so positive and so joyful, and then to have such a horrific thing happen ...
I keep on replaying it.” An Elections Canada “Vote” sign points the way to Swansea Town Hall in Toronto on Monday. TORONTO - Voters across the country head to the polls in the federal election today, and as results start to roll in at night, parties will be closely watching the Greater Toronto Area.
The GTA, which includes the city itself and surrounding areas such as Peel, York and Durham regions, has an abundance of seats and could help turn the tide in what is widely seen as a two-horse race. People in some ridings reliably vote in the same party every time, but the region also contains a lot of swing ridings, making the results anything but certain. Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet checks in as he arrives to vote at a polling place on federal election day in Chambly, Quebec, on April 28, 2025.
MONTREAL - Voters are heading to the polls in Quebec, where the Liberals are trying to gain enough seats to clinch a majority government and the Bloc Québécois is hoping an eleventh-hour bump in support will be enough to claim the balance of power. The campaign in Quebec has been a tough slog for Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet, who has watched his party lose ground to the Liberals as U.S.
President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs and annexation dominated headlines. Partway through the campaign, the Bloc appeared to be at risk of keeping fewer than the 12 seats it will need to maintain official party status. The Liberals seemed poised to win close to 50 of the province’s 78 seats, despite leader Carney’s imperfect French, which would have been the party’s best showing in decades.
Voters in the Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore riding are being redirected after one of the polling stations caught fire Monday morning. Firefighters responded to a blaze on the roof of the Windsor Family Credit Union Centre just after the polls opened, Elections Canada told the Star. The building was evacuated and Elections Canada workers were stationed at the scene to direct voters to cast their ballots at St.
Joseph Catholic High School instead. The fire is under control and voting is continuing as usual after the approximately half-hour interruption, according to Elections Canada. People walk past a polling station at the University of Ottawa on Monday, April 28, 2025.
There are about 4,500 polling stations across the country, but which can you vote at? According to Nathalie de Montigny, media relations for Elections Canada, voters can only vote at their assigned voting location, found on their voter information card. “The rules for voting on election day in the federal election differ from those that apply in a provincial election. You cannot vote at any polling station in the province in the federal election,” de Montigny said.
Canada’s Conservative and Liberal leaders have outlined their approaches to addressing crime, with promises ranging from stricter penalties for repeat offenders to enhanced safety measures for vulnerable groups. The Star tracked these promises and more in an . Here are their crime promises at a glance: The full promise tracker also covers commitments on health care, affordability, infrastructure and more.
. Mark Carney’s Liberals get ready for election night in Ottawa. The Liberals have opened up their election night HQ, here in a hockey arena in central Ottawa.
In the coming hours we can expect the place to get rammed with media and partisan reporters, with Carney and others set to address the audience later tonight. The day after a Canadian election that has hinged on how best to combat American trade tariffs, U.S.
President Donald Trump will travel to Michigan, a northern border state, to celebrate the first 100 days of his second term in office. “This will be a historic rally you won’t want to miss,” the registration website for the rally promised. Michigan is the beating heart of America’s automotive manufacturing industry, one that Trump has promised to resurrect with tariffs on foreign-made imports, including on Canadian-made vehicles.
This could be the first opportunity for Canada’s newly elected government to see the next step in to make Canada the 51st state — something he once again , as voters were headed to the polling stations. Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre holds a whistle stop rally in his home riding on the eve of the federal election at Stanley’s Olde Maple Lane Farm. The last day of the 2025 federal election campaign played out in the shadow of the .
On Saturday night, a man drove an SUV into the crowd at a Filipino street festival, killing at least 11 people and wounding dozens more. Mark Carney upended his campaign schedule Sunday. He cancelled several rallies, attended a series of smaller events across the country, then appeared at vigil Sunday night in Vancouver.
Pierre Poilievre largely left his itinerary intact. He joined a Filipino church Sunday morning to express his condolences. He offered words of sympathy and grief at several rallies.
But at his final event, not just of the night but of the campaign, he didn’t mention the massacre at all. I was at that rally, at a maple farm outside Ottawa. I’ll admit it struck me as a strange omission.
The Liberal, Conservative and NDP promises included plans to strengthen Canada’s workforce with new training initiatives, job protection measures and support for skilled trades. The Star tracked these promises and more in an . Here are the jobs promises at a glance: The full promise tracker also covers commitments on bureaucracy, veterans, agriculture and more.
Find the here. Liberal leader Mark Carney and his wife Diana Fox Carney who live in Ottawa’s leafy Rockcliffe neighbourhood, just voted in the Ottawa—Vanier—Gloucester riding where they are resident, as required by elections rules. He is not running in that riding, which is currently represented by a Liberal, Mona Fortier who’s the incumbent.
Carney is instead running in another suburban Ottawa riding, known as Nepean. Carney, dressed, casually in a dark jacket and white shirt mimed a nervous reaction beforehand when he looked at cameras. Afterwards, he gave a quick thumbs up, thanked volunteers, and left.
The hotel ballroom in Burnaby, B.C., where the NDP is setting up a base of operations.
Here is the view from the hotel ballroom in Burnaby, B.C. being set up to serve as the NDP’s headquarters tonight.
The election night event is expected to begin around 7 p.m. local time, or 10 p.
m. EST. I’m told it’ll be quite a while before we see or hear from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh tonight.
British Columbia, where the NDP holds half of its incumbents seats, is the westernmost province in Canada. That means it’ll be a while before we find out the NDP’s fate tonight. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh responds to United States President Donald Trump’s comments earlier on Monday about the Canadian election by posting on X, formerly Twitter, asking voters to “never back down.
” “He doesn’t choose our future. We do.” Good afternoon, folks! Polls in Ontario have been open for seven hours now.
The mood? Many of you in the comments share As Star columnist Martin Regg Cohn wrote earlier, In response to a trade war with the U.S. and escalating trade tensions around the world, Canada’s political leaders are outlining their plans to mitigate the impact of tariffs on Canadian industries, seniors and businesses.
The Star tracked these promises and more in an . Here’s an overview of Liberal, NDP and Conservative promises on tariffs: The full promise tracker also covers commitments on jobs, tariffs, defence and the environment. .
Voters casting their ballots at Lord Dufferin Junior and Senior Public School in Toronto—Centre have been taking their right to vote seriously. “It’s just something that responsible citizens should do,” Justin Sahota told the Star. When asked why it was important to exercise the right to vote, first-time voter Morgan Ficard, simply said, “because I have it,” and she knows not everyone can say the same.
Though she missed past opportunities to vote while out of the country, Ficard, 25, said she was “really happy to be able to do something (that demonstrates) what I believe in and the people I want to protect.” Canada still uses paper ballots, and all ballots are counted by two election workers in front of witnesses, usually the candidates or their representatives, according to information provided by Elections Canada. These votes are then recorded on a paper document called the “Statement of the Vote,” which is then entered into Elections Canada’s results aggregation and reporting system.
This allows the votes to be posted online and provided to media outlets in real time. A returning officer validates the votes in each riding a few nights after election night and compares them to the reporting system and the Statement of the Vote. Once verified in front of the candidates or representatives, a certificate with the number of votes is given to the Chief Electoral Officer, Stéphane Perrault.
Votes cast during the advanced polling days, between April 18 and 21, are counted at your local Elections Canada office on election day. Due to the record high turnout of advanced voting, there has been an adjustment for this election made by Perrault to allow advanced ballots to counted beginning two hours before polls close. These votes will be cast behind closed doors and will not be shared until after all polls have closed.
Special ballots, or mail-in ballots, are counted only after a verification process including matching unique identifiers to the voter’s application, their name, electoral district and signature of declaration on the envelopment. If any steps in the verification process fails, the vote is set aside. Special ballots are “counted in waves,” or entered into the aggregation and reporting system in batches on election night and in the days following if necessary.
Special ballots returned to a local Elections Canada office will be counted there on election night after polls closed, while all those mailed to Ottawa’s main Elections Canada office will be counted there. More information on how votes are cast and other questions about voting can be found on . Star reporter Joy SpearChief-Morris will be back with an explainer on a few short minutes.
In the meantime, you might want to check out our coverage on . TORONTO - The Toronto band Martha and the Muffins is calling on Pierre Poilievre to stop using “Echo Beach” at his campaign rallies without their authorization. Members of the group say they’ve been told the Conservative Party of Canada has been playing their 1980 new wave hit at some campaign events despite the musicians asking them to stop last month.
Representatives for the Conservative party did not respond to a request for comment. Band member Mark Gane says he first learned Poilievre’s campaign had used “Echo Beach” after reading a story in a local Sudbury newspaper earlier this year. He says his manager then sent a cease and desist request to the Conservative party.
Over in the comments, Judy says she’s That’s already been the case for advance voting. In Ontario, early voter turnout had a 25 per cent increase since the 2021 federal election, and 7.3 million people came out across the country, according to Elections Canada.
For tonight, polls in Ontario close at 9:30 p.m. We’ll have more soon on what to do if you’re heading over later in the evening, and whether any polling stations are staying open later than scheduled.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney casts his vote in Ottawa on Monday, April 28, 2025. Greetings from TD Place, where the Liberals are holding their election night party — a soirée which will, if the polls are right, be rebranded a “victory party” pretty shortly. Less than 20 hours ago, I was with Liberal Leader Mark Carney in Victoria, B.
C. as he campaigned right down to the wire. And now, having gotten a bit of sleep, here’s where things stand as we await the polls to close and the first results come in.
The Liberals are feeling incredibly bullish about their odds tonight. According to senior Liberal sources, the campaign had identified about 28 seats across the country that they saw as crucial pickups — over the course of the campaign, I believe Carney has visited each of those ridings once, some of them multiple times. That list in the eastern half of the country includes the only Conservative seat in Newfoundland and Labrador, held by Conservative Clifford Small; two-to-three seats in Nova Scotia; and a seat in New Brunswick.
The Liberals also expect their growth in Quebec to come exclusively from Bloc-held ridings: If you see ridings like Trois-Rivères and Rivière-du-Nord turn red, then the Liberals are adding a lot of notches in their column. And then you’ve got ridings scattered around Ontario including Peterborough, London—Fanshawe, and Windsor West, where the Liberals hope Trump-anxiety dominates the day. Those are the seats to watch early in the evening.
“We’re not expecting a wave,” one Liberal told me this evening, but if you’re seeing them pick up these ridings, things are going according to plan for them. A perfect sign of the vibes is what’s going on in Pierre Poilievre’s Carleton riding. A source near Premier Doug Ford told me weeks ago that their data shows Poilievre losing his seat — and, in recent days, the Liberals have allowed themselves to get that ambitious.
I’m told Liberal staff and resources have been sent into the suburban Ottawa riding, as the Liberals hope Poilievre’s personal unpopularity, his promises to cut the civil service, and his support for the Freedom Convoy hurt him with his constituents. While some Conservatives I talk to remain optimistic that there are scores of shy Conservative voters out there who will, despite what the polls say, deliver Poilievre a plurality of seats, many seem to think they’re heading for a bruising defeat. Blame is already being assigned to campaign manager Jenni Byrne for picking fights with conservative premiers and politicians, including Doug Ford and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston.
From the outset, the Conservatives went all-in on the idea that Poilievre himself would expand the Conservative base: cannibalizing the People’s Party, motivating non-voters, and winning over young Canadians. While he has successfully done that, it may not be enough. Poilievre’s caustic style has seemingly become a drag on his party — leading some Conservatives to wonder why Byrne failed to pivot weeks ago.
This dour mood will mean that if the Conservatives can hold their ground, it will be seen as a victory. If Poilievre can keep his seat and beat back a Liberal advances near Quebec City, around Winnipeg, and in Edmonton — while picking up seats at the expense of the NDP in British Columbia — Poilievre can spin tonight as a marginal win. Speaking of the NDP, this campaign has been a disaster for them.
Leader Jagmeet Singh made so much of his campaign about what he doesn’t want — corporate landlords, cuts to healthcare, reductions in EI benefits — that he failed to make a case for what he does want. Squeezed on all sides, we expect him to slip into single-digits. Singh will be in an incredibly tough fight to save his seat.
Still, the recent Ontario election shows the power of the NDP’s ground game in its ability to protect its incumbents. And the party is cautiously optimistic that it could return Ruth Ellen Brosseau to Parliament in Berthier—Maskinongé and elect popular MPP Bhutila Karpoche in Taiaiako’n—Parkdale—High Park. And finally there are the Greens: It’s a complete toss-up whether Elizabeth May can keep her seat in Saanich—Gulf Islands, where Carney was last night; and it’s also unclear whether Mike Morrice can hang on in Kitchener Centre.
While co-leader Jonathan Pedneault campaigned hard in Outremont, it’ll be a tough climb for him to turn the riding green. We’re just under 30 minutes away from the first polls closing in Newfoundland. Party leaders have spent their days voting and responding to U.
S. President Donald Trump’s assertion yet again that Canada should become the 51st state. In a post on X, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre told Trump to “stay out of our election.
” Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney wrote, “This is Canada – and we decide what happens here.” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Trump “doesn’t choose our future. We do.
” Poilievre and his wife Anaida voted in his riding of Carleton this morning, while Carney voted with his wife Diana Fox Carney in Ottawa this afternoon. Because Carney lives in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe neighbourhood — not the Nepean riding where he is running — he could not vote for himself. Meanwhile, Singh stopped by a busy intersection in Port Moody, B.
C. to pump up some NDP volunteers in his last public appearance of the election. He voted during advance polls in Burnaby, B.
C. The scene at the Conservative Party’s HQ for the evening, which is being held in downtown Ottawa’s Rogers Centre. This is the room where Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre is expected to deliver his victory or concession speech later this evening.
Sound and light checks are underway before the space opens to the public in about an hour. That part in and of itself is interesting: anyone who wants to attend was able to register online. We’ll see who shows up! A live election blog isn’t the ideal place for a deep dive into Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet’s recent declaration that Canada is an “artificial country.
” Blanchet took heat for the comment but refused to apologize — instead doubling down, claiming he was simply stating a fact. Still, it’s hard not to think of a concept from family law that might have resonated more with Quebec voters: the idea of two partners living separate and apart under the same roof for economic reasons. Does that make it an “artificial” home? Maybe.
But it’s a more nuanced analogy — and one that might have served Blanchet better, given Quebec’s complex relationship with the rest of Canada. We’ll soon learn whether Blanchet’s stark framing connected with Quebec voters in those too-close-to-call ridings. The Greater Toronto Area, or “the 905,” has long been a Liberal-Conservative battleground and will be a key region to watch as votes come in tonight.
The GTA holds 34 seats — more than all four Atlantic provinces combined (with 32) and nearly as many as Alberta (with 37). Largely suburban, the 905 is made up of the densely populated regions outside the city of Toronto, including Peel (12 seats), York (10), Halton (6) and Durham (6). Wins and losses in the region often determine which party holds power and whether they end up with a majority or minority government.
The 905 has traditionally had low voter turnout. In King-Vaughan, only 48.6 per cent of voters cast a ballot in the 2021 federal election — the lowest in the country.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Liberal Leader Mark Carney have both spent a lot of time campaigning in the region in recent weeks. Poilievre visited an auto parts plant in Vaughan and held a rally in Oshawa. Carney spent this past weekend in York Region, speaking at an art gallery in Aurora and a coffee shop in Newmarket.
A background note for readers outside of the GTA: “the 905” is a nickname based on the region’s most common telephone area code. Polling stations in Atlantic Canada are about to wind down, meaning we’ll have the first riding results soon. Back in the comments, Stephen is predicting a Conservative or Liberal minority.
In Toronto’s Taiaiako’n—Parkdale—High Park riding, the NDP candidate was a longtime MPP at Queen’s Park. She quit to run for a federal seat in this election and now, she may be the party’s only chance to win a seat in Toronto. Sometimes those looking for signs of a campaign’s strategy can simply look at lawn signs.
Take Don Valley West incumbent Rob Oliphant. One sign simply says “Re-elect Rob Oliphant” with the Liberal logo—probably designed and printed when the best hope was simply to hold on and avoid a wipeout. Maybe even leftovers from 2021.
But then, the winds shifted. A new leader emerged, and suddenly, there’s a bright yellow “Team Carney” sticker slapped on top. In a flash, the campaign shifts from survival mode to riding the wave of a new brand.
Sometimes, evolution in politics is all about adapting on the fly — even if it means stickering your signs and hoping for the best. The growing 905 communities tend to flip flop between the Liberal and Conservative parties, and both have been courting votes in this area. This election has a few new wrinkles, as boundary changes have reshaped some ridings, meaning some sitting candidates are now running in new ridings, and it remains to be seen how that will play out.
For example, Conservative candidate Jamil Javani won the byelection in Durham but is now running in Bowmanville-Oshawa North, where he’s been polling ahead of Bridget Girard. Liberal Jaunita Nathan, a former public school trustee and Markham city councillor, is taking on Alicia Viangi in Pickering—Brooklin, which used to be half of Pickering—Uxbridge, held by Liberal Jennifer O’Connell since 2015, who chose not to seek re-election. In Peel, the new riding of Brampton—Chinguacousy Park sees Shafqat Ali, the Brampton Centre Liberal MP since 2021, taking on Conservative hopeful Tim Iqbal, chief executive of a private business school.
In Oakville, Liberal Anita Anand who reconsidered her plans to leave politics, will be running in the newly formed Oakville East after her riding was shuffled to create two others. Anand will face off against Conservative candidate Ron Chhinzer, a former police officer. A large segment of the community is also putting their weight behind the local NDP candidate, Hailey Ford, which could serve as a challenge for the former cabinet minister.
The polls have closed in Newfoundland and the first results are expected shortly. There are seven ridings in the province and before the election, all but one of them was in Liberal hands. The one outlier was Central Newfoundland which the Conservatives held before the election.
Conservative MP Clifford Small won it in 2021 with a tight margin of just 281 votes. The Conservatives will definitely be looking to hold onto that riding and I’m sure they hope to pick up other seats on the rock as well. The riding includes Gander, famous for its response to 9/11 when dozens of planes were forced to land there.
Liberal leader Mark Carney visited Gander in one of his first campaign stops. Autoworker Angely Labo works in the body shop producing the Chevrolet Silverado, at the GM Assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, on Tuesday, February 22 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young Trump’s tariffs threats loom loudest in areas like Oshawa, where automobile manufacturing has been eroding for years.
“We are into this tariff situation which could lead to the biggest industrial crisis we have ever seen,” said Jeff Gray, president of Local 222 in Oshawa earlier in this campaign. While most polls had Liberal Leader Mark Carney as the leader best suited to take on Trump and his tariffs, Oshawa has an interesting history as a riding. For the first 25 year of it existence, it was an NDP stronghold, held by former party leader Ed Broadbent.
It flipped to the Liberal as Ivan Grose represented the area from 1993 to 2004. Since then, it’s been held by longtime Conservative Colin Carrie, who is after 20 years in the seat decided not to seek re-election this time. New Conservative candidate Rhonda Kirkland was leading Liberal Isaac Ransom in the polls, and it was projected to be a seat held by the party.
Just north in the newly created riding of Bowmanville-Oshawa North, Jamil Jivani, who is the current MP for Durham is also projected to hold his seat. Jivani is a former broadcaster and right-leaning personality who is also known to be very close with U.S.
vice president J.D. Vance, although he too has advocated for fighting the U.
S. tariffs. This campaign kicked off with the Conservatives trying to brand Mark Carney as a Justin Trudeau clone.
They assumed that simply equating “Mark” with “Justin” would do the trick, much like their past successes at defining opponents early. But this time, the narrative didn’t stick. One reason? The Conservatives’ own leader-centric mindset.
They framed everything around their leader — and assumed the only way to define an opponent was through the same lens. Tying Carney to Trudeau seemed like an easy shortcut. But Canadians quickly saw that Carney isn’t Trudeau 2.
0. In reality, the head waiter may have changed, but the staff — the party machine and its architects behind the scenes — largely stayed the same. The miscalculation wasn’t about Carney himself; it was about thinking the same old playbook would work.
The attack shouldn’t have been limited to Carney. It should have been about “Team Carney.” If you’re voting in the GTA, make sure to cast your vote before polls close at 9:30pm EST.
There will be no polling locations open past this time. Planning on heading to the polls last minute? “Electors that are in line before closing time will be able to vote regardless of how long the line is,” said Nathalie de Montigny, media relations representative for Elections Canada. When Mark Carney first hit the campaign trail — first running for the Liberal leadership and then in the general election — he was awkward, somewhat uncomfortable, and just not attuned to the nature of retail politics.
A prime example: When he first started working rooms of Canadians, he had a bad habit of shaking one voter’s hand while already turning to look at the next person in the reception line. Generally speaking, it wasn’t clear that he had the pizzazz nor the stamina to make this campaign work for him. But over the past four months, Carney has learned the ropes pretty quickly.
He is still not a natural speaker, but that’s become an advantage. His supporters now regularly offer him well-intentioned heckles — shouting things like “elbows up!“, “never 51!” and, infamously, “lead us, big daddy!” He’s learned how to roll with those spontaneous calls, and it’s made him seem more relatable, dynamic, and grassroots. These aren’t characteristics that anyone expected Carney to adopt.
And I can tell you that the rooms of Liberals in Windsor, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Victoria who turned out to see Carney this weekend were some of the most energetic we’ve seen to date. By the end of it, Carney looked ready to keep going — even as the journalists travelling with him were ready to fall asleep on their feet. (Myself included.
) Poilievre, meanwhile, has been consistent: And Conservatives think that’s a huge asset. He looks and sounds today more-or-less as he did two-and-a-half years ago, when he was first elected leader of his party. Apart from some minor tone changes, Poilievre sounds the same in English as he does in French.
His stump speech is virtually the same whether he’s in Petty Harbour, Newfoundland & Labrador or whether he’s in Nanaimo. He’s managed to reach people who had given up on politics and young voters who feel like they can’t get ahead. And his rallies have been huge.
He’s packed warehouses, airport hangers, and union halls with thousands of working class voters who are extremely receptive to his message. While Poilievre has eschewed a lot of the normal aspects of campaigning, these rallies have been the oxygen for his campaign. Poilievre’s strategy would have likely worked quite well against Justin Trudeau.
But, as Carney told Poilievre during the debate: “Justin Trudeau isn’t here.” Let’s spare a thought for the families of those Liberals who had announced they wouldn’t seek re-election. Former Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Sean Fraser said he would step away to spend more time with his family — only to change his mind and seek re-election.
Transport Minister Anita Anand initially declared her intent to return to academia, but reversed course a couple of months later. Politics has a way of pulling people back in — especially when duty calls and the odds start looking better than before. Just a note we are seeing a lot of ridings starting to post results, but they are coming in a few polls at a time.
Ridings can have over 200 individual polls so when we only have a few it may not reflect what’s actually happening. A riding that is a mix of towns and rural areas may see different results from those two areas. Some polls might have a concentration of one party’s supporters that can skew things in the early going.
Canadians have a wealth of platforms to follow tonight’s election results, from the Toronto Star to a myriad of networks. But a special nod goes to the folks at CBC, who are watching with an added layer of interest. With Pierre Poilievre’s vow to defund the CBC, tonight’s outcome isn’t just political — it’s personal.
And let’s not forget our friends at Radio-Canada, who are equally curious about how one could defund the CBC without somehow impacting them. Elections Canada signage is seen as voters arrive at a polling station on Election Day in Halifax on Monday, April 28, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese Results for the region are now expected to trickle in with 25 seats up for grabs.
There are 11 seats in Nova Scotia, 10 seats in New Brunswick and four seats in Prince Edward Island. Abacus Data CEO David Coletto it’s difficult for either the Liberals or Conservatives to form a majority without a strong showing here. The Liberals won all these seats in 2015, when they last won a majority government.
A year ago they looked headed to lose these ridings. In Nova Scotia, there are 11 seats up for grabs. Seven were in Liberal hands when Parliament was dissolved, three were Conservative and one — the riding of Halifax — was vacant and in the middle of a by-election.
Two Conservative ridings to watch tonight are Cumberland—Colchester and South Shore—St. Margarets. The Conservatives won these ridings pretty convincingly in the 2021 election, but they were previously in the Liberal fold and if the Conservatives lose we could be witnessing another Liberal Atlantic sweep.
Another interesting riding to watch will be Central Nova, where former cabinet minister Sean Fraser is running. In December, Fraser announced he would not be running in this election, but he changed his mind in the first week of the campaign and Carney visited him for an event. In New Brunswick, there are 10 ridings up for grabs.
When the House of Commons last sat, the Liberals held six of those ridings and the Conservatives held four. Miramichi—Grand Lake is one riding worth watching tonight. The Conservatives picked it up in 2021, with MP Jake Stewart, a former member of the New Brunswick legislature.
But Stewart announced in March he wouldn’t be running again, right after several stories emerged about him having lost confidence from The Liberal HQ party is at a hockey rink in Ottawa. The ice is covered, but the boards are still up and I imagine the Liberal campaign is happy with the imagery. For a guy who repeatedly claimed he was “staying out of it,” Premier Doug Ford seemed to be a constant presence in the federal election campaign – mostly by seeming to help Liberal Leader Mark Carney.
As reported by the Star on March 20, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre finally reached out to the Progressive Conservative premier on March 17 for the first time ever. In an interview published Sunday with Politico’s Jonathan Martin, Ford was asked why Poilievre didn’t “make the effort” to call him earlier. “You’re going to have to ask him that.
But I think it’s common sense when you’re in an election, you reach across to as many people as you can,” said the premier, noting the federal Tory leader also doesn’t have a relationship with Nova Scotia PC Premier Tim Houston. “Not at all. Or local mayors.
Or anyone. I don’t understand it,” Ford told Martin, who posited that “somebody put a gun to his head” for Poilievre to call. “That’s exactly what happened,” said the premier.
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