Prime Minister Mark Carney will lead a minority government after a very close general election race that left the Liberals just three seats shy of a majority.
Just before 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Elections Canada showed the Liberals projected to win 169 ridings after flipping one riding in Quebec from the Bloc Québécois earlier in the day.
The Conservatives won 144 seats and will form the official Opposition again. The Bloc Québécois followed with 22 seats, the NDP with seven projected seats and the Green Party with one seat.
The projected results landed nearly 24 hours after the first polls closed on Monday.
Elections Canada decided early Tuesday morning to pause the marathon counting of special ballots with a handful of ridings still too close to call.
Special ballots are cast by mail or at Elections Canada offices by voters who are away from their ridings during the election.
One of those outstanding seats was the Ottawa riding previously held by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. The Canadian Press decision desk now projects Liberal Bruce Fanjoy has won the seat.
Recounts in some ridings are expected.
With a minority government, the Liberals will again need help from other parties’ MPs to pursue their agenda.
In his victory speech, Carney pledged to unite a divided country in the face of ongoing tensions with the United States. He promised to lead a government that represents all Canadians and said the country works when Canadians pull together.
“Let’s put an end to the division and anger of the past,” Carney said. “We are all Canadian, and my government will work for and with everyone.”
That promise will be put to the test quickly.
After an election fought largely over which leader could best handle U.S. President Donald Trump and his threats against Canada’s economy and sovereignty, Trump’s administration weighed in Tuesday to bring those concerns back to the forefront.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the Canadian election “does not affect President Trump’s plan to make Canada America’s cherished 51st state.”
Carney and Trump have agreed to meet in person in the near future, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
The PMO’s account of a phone call Tuesday between the two leaders said Trump congratulated Carney on his election victory.
It added that the two agreed on the importance of Canada and the United States working together — as independent, sovereign nations — for their mutual betterment.
Carney held his first phone call with Trump during the first week of the election campaign. The two agreed then that they would immediately launch discussions on a new trade and security pact following the election.
Poilievre said during his concession speech that he would stay on as Conservative leader despite his party’s loss. He hushed some booing from the crowd when he congratulated Carney on his win.
“No, no, we’ll have plenty of opportunity to debate and disagree. But tonight we come together as Canadians,” Poilievre said.
“We have to learn the lessons of tonight so that we can have an even better result the next time.”
Poilievre’s loss in Carleton after holding the riding for 21 years leaves him on the outside of the next Parliament. The seat flipped following a concerted push by the Liberal party and Fanjoy to get out the vote in the Ottawa-area riding.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in a social media post on Tuesday that he spoke by phone with Carney to congratulate him and that they discussed joint projects between France and Canada, as well as challenges ahead of the coming G7 meetings in June.
Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper congratulated Carney and wished the next government “success as they navigate our country forward during these challenging times.”
“I also want to congratulate Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada on making significant gains, both in seats and popular vote, and bringing an entire new generation of Canadians to the Conservative Party,” he said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who became a divisive figure for the Conservatives during the campaign, also congratulated Carney and said he was ready to work with the new government. He encouraged the prime minister to help accelerate natural resource development and other projects in the province.
Premier Scott Moe in Saskatchewan and Premier Danielle Smith in Alberta also congratulated Carney, even as they expressed dissatisfaction with the election results.
“A large majority of Albertans are deeply frustrated that the same government that overtly attacked our provincial economy almost unabated for the past 10 years has been returned to government,” Smith said in a media statement.
“As premier, I will not permit the status quo to continue,” she said, adding that Albertans would have the “opportunity to discuss the province’s future” in the weeks to come.
Moe said voters in Saskatchewan, who elected only one Liberal MP, “sent a strong message by voting for change.”
British Columbia Premier David Eby urged Carney to call the premiers together to get rid of trade barriers within Canada.
“It should be as easy for us to do business with Ontarians as it currently is to do business with people in Washington State,” he told reporters. “And so that’s a critical priority.”
Eby said it is also crucial to support industries affected by Trump’s global trade war.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Tuesday he plans to speak with the other party leaders about “what we have in common.”
The last thing the people of Quebec want “is instability in the federal Parliament,” he said at a press conference in Montreal.
Blanchet indicated any talk of Quebec sovereignty must take a back seat to dealing with the threat of Trump’s tariffs through trade negotiations.
“I am absolutely certain that we must first in the federal Parliament deal with the negotiation,” he said.
The Bloc Québécois is projected to lose 11 of the seats it held before the election but is set to retain its status as the third-largest party in the House of Commons.
Blanchet, who noted the NDP also lost seats, cautioned New Democrats against propping up a Liberal minority as they did in the last Parliament.
“I’m not sure, if I were them, that I would try that another time,” he said.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh lost his Vancouver-area seat and announced he would be resigning as party leader once New Democrats select an interim replacement.
“We may lose sometimes and those losses hurt,” Singh said, fighting emotion as he stood beside his wife on a stage in Burnaby, B.C., after the results were in.
“We’re only defeated when we believe … those that tell us that we can never dream of a better Canada, a fairer Canada, a more compassionate Canada.”
At least a dozen New Democrat MPs lost their seats and preliminary results show it may be difficult for the NDP to maintain official party status, which gives a party access to research funding and more opportunities to make queries during question period.
— With files from Jim Bronskill in Ottawa and Kelly Geraldine Malone in Washington
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