Justin Trudeau will keep his job as prime minister of Canada, and under his leadership, the Liberal Party will return to Ottawa with a minority government after Monday night’s 2019 federal election.
It was a long night for many campaigns, filled with some surprise wins and some major upsets.
Many races proved to be tight in ridings across the country and weren’t called until the wee hours.
If you’re still catching up, here’s a breakdown of what went down and what the House of Commons will look like after Monday night, by the numbers (based on Elections Canada’s preliminary results):
Seat breakdown
None of the federal political parties hit the 170-seat threshold of a majority government, which the Liberal Party scored when it stormed to power in 2015. Despite winning a plurality of the 338 seats in Parliament and securing minority status this time around, the Liberals lost the popular vote to the Conservatives.
The Liberals lost 27 seats on Monday night compared to their 2015 election results. The party won a total of 157 seats, down from 184 in 2015 and the 177 the party held at dissolution in September of this year.
The Liberals didn’t win any seats in Alberta or Saskatchewan. All but two of the previous government’s cabinet ministers were re-elected: Ralph Goodale and Amarjeet Sohi lost their seats in Saskatchewan and Alberta, respectively.
The Tories, meanwhile, had a better showing than in 2015, securing 121 seats, up from the 99 the party won four years ago and the 95 it held at dissolution.
For its part, the recently embattled Bloc Québécois had a great night, reclaiming official party status and snatching third place from the New Democrats. Reduced to just four seats in the orange wave that swept Quebec in 2011, the Bloc recovered slightly in 2015 with 10 seats and then, on Monday night, more than tripled its caucus by securing 32 seats.
The Bloc resurgence saw the NDP lose 20 seats on Monday night and sink to fourth place. The party won 44 seats in the 2015 election, had 39 at dissolution and won only 24 on Monday evening, despite experience a mini-surge in popularity toward the end of the 2019 campaign.
The Green Party gained one more seat in the House of Commons with a historic breakthrough in Atlantic Canada. For essentially two terms of Parliament, leader Elizabeth May has been a one-woman caucus and was joined just months before the election campaign by Paul Manly, who won a May 2019 byelection in Nanaimo-Ladysmith. Both May and Manly were re-elected Monday night and are now joined by Jenica Atwin, who picked up the seat in Fredericton, N.B.
Former Liberal cabinet minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould was the sole Independent candidate elected on Monday night. Wilson-Raybould won the B.C. riding of Vancouver Granville for a second time in a row, beating her Liberal and Conservative rivals in the riding’s three-way race.
Finally, although the new People’s Party of Canada ran candidates in every riding across the country, the party failed to secure a single seat in the House of Commons. Leader Maxime Bernier, who walked out on the Conservatives to found the party, lost his longtime riding of Beauce, Que., to his Tory rival Richard Lehoux.
Voter turnout and the popular vote
In 2019, voter turnout dropped slightly compared to the last federal election. Elections Canada is reporting that 65.95 per cent of eligible Canadian voters cast a ballot, a 2.35 per cent drop from the 68.3 per cent turnout in 2015.
That number, however, doesn’t include electors who registered on election day.
Even though they won 36 fewer seats than the Liberals, the Conservative Party won the greatest share of ballots cast with 6,155,662 votes, or 34.4 per cent of the popular vote.
For their part, the Liberals secured 5,915,950 votes, or 33.1 per cent of the popular vote.
Here’s the breakdown for the rest of the parties:
- NDP: 2,849,214 votes (15.9 per cent)
- Bloc Québécois:1,376,135 votes (7.7 per cent)
- Greens: 1,162,361 votes (6.5 per cent)
- People’s Party: 292,703 votes (1.6 per cent)
- Independent: 71,854 votes (0.4 per cent)
- Christian Heritage Party: 18,816 votes (0.1 per cent)
Gender balance
Global News has calculated that a record number of women were elected in the 2019 federal election.
Based on a count of Elections Canada’s preliminary results, 98 women were elected or re-elected to the House of Commons on Monday night, up from 88 in 2015.
These results mean women now represent 29 per cent of the House of Commons, up from 26 per cent four years earlier.
By comparison, 240 men were elected to Parliament in the 2019 election, down from 250 in the 2015 election.
Notable winners
- Yves-François Blanchet: The leader of the Bloc Québécois ousted two-term NDP MP Matthew Dubé to secure the Beloeil-Chambly seat in Quebec.
- Jody Wilson-Raybould: Despite an aggressive Liberal push in Vancouver Granville, Wilson-Raybould was able to hold down the riding as an independent candidate.
- Jenica Atwin: Atwin became the Green Party’s first MP in Atlantic Canada on Monday night.
- Jack Harris: In what could be called the comeback of the night, the NDP candidate reclaimed his St. John’s East seat in Newfoundland and Labrador after losing it in the 2015 red wave in Atlantic Canada.
- Steven Guilbeault: The Liberal candidate in Laurier-Sainte-Marie kept the Bloc from reclaiming its old riding after the incumbent NDP MP candidate didn’t run for re-election.
Notable losers
- Ralph Goodale: The longtime, stalwart Liberal MP and former cabinet minister, was ousted in Regina-Wascana by his Conservative rival.
- Amarjeet Sohi: The Liberal candidate and former cabinet minister succumbed to the blue wave in Alberta.
- Lisa Raitt: The Tory candidate and deputy leader, who had represented her riding in Ottawa for 11 years and served in Stephen Harper’s cabinet, lost her Milton seat to Liberal star candidate and Olympian Adam van Koeverden.
- Ruth Ellen Brosseau: The two-term incumbent NDP candidate, first elected in the 2011 orange wave, was narrowly defeated by the Bloc in the Berthier-Maskinongé riding as the New Democrats were all but decimated in Quebec on Monday night.
- Jane Philpott: The former Liberal cabinet minister, who resigned from cabinet over the SNC-Lavalin affair and was later kicked out of the Liberal caucus, tried to return to Parliament as an independent but came in a distant third in her riding of Markham-Stouffville.
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