Canada’s 45th general election cost about $570 million, took 230,000 people to administer and saw 1,959 candidates compete in 343 ridings — and it all proceeded relatively smoothly, except for two ridings in Quebec, Elections Canada said in a report tabled in the House of Commons Monday morning.
The 77-page report also documents a record-high shift to advance voting, a shift which Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault said is putting tremendous pressure on Elections Canada to lease enough polling stations, hire enough polling station workers, and fine-tune its mail-in ballot program.
“Nearly half of all voters chose to cast their ballot early. We must expect this trend to continue, as it has done over the last decade,” Perrault told reporters. “Not only were Canadians voting earlier, but the task of finding accessible and available polling locations and finalizing the leases is increasingly difficult.”
Perreault is calling on MPs to lengthen the minimum time of an election campaign — the writ period — by anywhere from a day to seven days to give local returning officers more time for example to lease polling space and hire enough workers.
Both those pressure may have contributed to the most significant problems in the 45th election: the misprint of a postal code on an unknown number of Elections Canada’s pre-addressed mail-in ballots in a Montreal-area riding; and the inability by Elections Canada in a northern Quebec riding to find enough workers to keep polling stations open.
Still, neither any contestant in the election nor the chief electoral officer doubts the overall result of the election which resulted in a Liberal minority government.
Furthermore, there were no incidents of foreign interference or other attacks that had any effect on the administration of the election, Elections Canada reports. “I want Canadians to know that the last election was secure, no security or cyber security incident affected the administration of the election,” Perreault said.
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In the riding of Terrebonne, north of Montreal, the preliminary results on election night showed Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste in the lead by 83 votes. After the validation of results, Bloc Québécois candidate and incumbent Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné led by 44 votes. A judicial recount was then held and the Liberal, Auguste, was declared the winner by a single vote.
It subsequently emerged that at least one constituent in the riding who voted by mail-in ballot — and who said she had cast a ballot for the BQ candidate — had her mail-in ballot returned to her. The ballot was returned because the pre-addressed envelope provided to the voter by Elections Canada had the wrong postal code on it. Elections Canada has committed to reviewing its procedures to prevent such an error but obtaining a lease on the local returning office as early as possible could help. The vast majority of mail-in ballots are sent to the local returning office where they are counted on election day.
In the meantime, Sinclair-Desgagné has sued to force a brand new election, and while Auguste has been sworn in as the member of Parliament for Terrebonne, a judge could order a new election in Terrebonne. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for mid-October.
In any event, whether Terrebonne remains in Liberal hands or goes back to the BQ, the overall results of the April 28 election would not change: The Liberals with 169 — or maybe 168 — have a minority government in the 343-seat House of Commons, the Conservatives are the official Opposition with 144 seats; the BQ has 22 seats now — maybe 23 depending on the Terrebonne outcome; the NDP won seven seats — failing to win official party status; and the Greens won one seat.
In the northern Quebec riding of Abitibi–Baie-James–Nunavik–Eeyou, some voters may have been unable to cast a ballot because Elections Canada was unable to hire enough poll workers for the northernmost parts of that riding. Perrault travelled to Nunavik earlier this month to personally apologize for that failure.
That said, the inability of some voters in Nunavik to cast a ballot did not appear to affect the outcome. Liberal candidate Mandy Gull-Masty defeated Bloc Québecois incumbent Sylvia Bérubé by more than 2,000 votes, or more than six percentage points. Gull-Masty is the current minister of Indigenous Services.
In his official report to the House of Commons, Perrault acknowledged the problems in Nunavik and wrote, “Further strengthening relationships with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities, and working to ensure that the electoral process is inclusive and welcoming to all those who wish to participate, will continue to be a priority for the agency.”
Elections Canada says 19.8 million Canadians cast a ballot, for a turnout rate of 69 per cent, significantly higher than the 63 per cent turnout rate in the 2021 election, and the highest turnout in 30 years.
The 2025 election was especially notable for the number of voters who cast a ballot before the April 28 election day. Elections Canada said 8.7 million voters, or 44 per cent of all those who cast a ballot, did so at an advance poll or through a mail-in ballot, a record high for any general election.
Elections Canada and associated security agencies were also on alert during the spring election for foreign interference. Perrault, though, wrote that “no incidents of interference were found to have impacted the administration of this (electoral) event.”
The chief electoral officer is required, by law, to table an official report in the House of Commons on every general election within 90 days of the return of the writs.
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