2025 Canadian federal election

The 2025 Canadian federal election will be held on April 28 to elect members of the House of Commons to the 45th Canadian Parliament. The writs of election were issued on March 23, 2025, after Governor General Mary Simon accepted a request to dissolve parliament from Prime Minister Mark Carney.
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. 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. In March 2022, the Liberals struck a deal with the fourth-place New Democratic Party (NDP), where the latter would provide confidence and supply for the duration of the Parliament in exchange for certain policy concessions. The agreement lasted until September 2024, when the NDP terminated the deal.
One week after the election, on September 27, Annamie Paul resigned as the Green Party leader, citing lack of party support. The subsequent leadership election was won by former leader Elizabeth May, who ran on a "joint ticket" with Jonathan Pedneault, proposing a co-leadership model; Pedneault was officially named the deputy leader, pending a change to the party's constitution to allow co-leadership. May and Pedneault formally became co-leaders on February 4, 2025.
On February 2, 2022, Conservative leader Erin O'Toole was removed as leader by a caucus vote. Following a leadership election, Pierre Poilievre was elected the new leader of the Conservative Party.
The government was plunged into a political crisis on December 16, 2024 when finance minister Chrystia Freeland abruptly resigned, only hours before she was set to present the government's fall economic statement, due to her opposition to Trudeau's fiscal policy. Trudeau, who had already faced down a caucus revolt in October, was faced with renewed questions about his leadership. By December 22, 21 Liberal MPs had publicly called for Trudeau to step down. On January 6, 2025, Trudeau announced his intention to resign as prime minister after the party elected his successor. The ensuing leadership election was won by Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada. Carney was sworn in as prime minister on March 14.
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, the election was scheduled to take place on October 20, 2025. However, elections can 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.
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 Diwali, as well as municipal elections in Alberta. The bill died on the order paper when the Parliament of Canada was prorogued by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he announced his resignation.
On March 23, 2025, after a request from Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Governor General dissolved parliament and called an election for April 28, 2025. This will be the first Canadian federal election under the reign of King Charles III, who acceded to the throne in 2022.
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.
Canada's electoral system, a "first-past-the-post" system, is formally referred to as a single-member plurality system. Voters select a representative nominated for their electoral district (sometimes referred to as a riding), and the candidate with more votes than any other candidate is elected to a seat in the 343-member 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 privileges than the other opposition parties.
An absolute majority of the votes cast in the last election is not needed to form government and is rarely achieved. As well, the government party 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 can be defeated, then a new party is named government or an election has to be held.
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.
As of April 2025, 60 MPs have announced they will not run in the 2025 federal election. One MP lost their party nomination race to run again. One MP had their candidacy revoked by their party and was barred from running under its banner.
Four MPs announced their intention not to stand again, but later resigned from Parliament before the election. Five further MPs initially announced their intention to stand down, before changing their minds.
In its May 2022 report, the Leaders' Debates Commission recommended various improvements for future debates, and that it remain a permanent publicly funded entity to organize leaders' debates. In October 2024, the Leaders' Debate Commission announced that the English-language debate will be hosted by TVO's Steve Paikin, while the French-language debate will be hosted by Ici RDI's Patrice Roy.
TVA Nouvelles had announced plans to host its own French-language debate with the Bloc, Conservative, Liberal, and NDP leaders, but cancelled the event after the Liberal Party withdrew.
On April 1, 2025, the Commission announced that it had invited the leaders of the Bloc Québécois, Conservative Party, Green Party, Liberal Party, and New Democratic Party to the debates. The People's Party was not invited, as it did not meet the criteria for either holding a seat in Parliament or polling at least 4%.
Candidate nominations are open until April 7. Elections Canada will publish a list of nominated candidates on April 9.