Canada has a new prime minister and looks to be holding a round of elections in the coming weeks. Given the implications of a new Canadian government when it comes to the brewing trade war initiated by the Trump administration in the US, these elections will have a considerably bigger spotlight on them than usual.
Amid growing political headwinds, Justin Trudeau in January announced he’d soon be stepping down as Canadian prime minister and leader of the country’s left-leaning Liberal Party. At the time, it was widely assumed that dissatisfaction with Trudeau would allow the country’s right-leaning Conservative Party to sweep into power.
Since then, however, Trudeau’s adamant opposition to President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs against Canada and Trump’s repeated assertions that Canada should agree to become the 51st American state have done a lot to rebuild voter support for the Liberals. That’s recast the impending elections as a proper fight instead of a blowout. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has also expressed opposition to Trump’s policies, despite his party’s alignment with American conservatives on a host of other issues.
All this has put the parties on a high-stakes electoral collision course that will play out… eventually. To find out when the Canadian elections will take place, and everything else you should know about them, keep reading.
Who are the candidates in the Canadian elections?
This year’s Canadian federal elections will see members of Parliament elected to the country’s House of Commons. The map going into the election is made up of 343 districts, meaning that a party will need to win 172 seats to achieve a majority. Heading into it, neither of Canada’s two biggest parties, the Liberals (153 seats) and Conservatives (120 seats), holds a majority.
As happens in a parliamentary system, the Canadian prime minister is traditionally the leader of the party with the most MPs in the House of Commons, so a majority of seats is not a necessity. On March 14, the 44th Canadian Parliament dissolved and Trudeau officially stepped aside after nearly 10 years as prime minister.
On March 9, economist and former Trudeau advisor Mark Carney was overwhelmingly elected as the new leader of the Liberal Party and sworn in as prime minister on March 14. If the party retains the most seats in the federal elections, he will continue on in the position. Otherwise, Conservative leader Poilievre will become prime minister, should his party win enough seats. Polls currently show Poilievre’s party ahead of Carney’s by a sliver, with the gap having been narrowed hugely since the tariff conflict kicked off with Trump.
Several other parties with a smattering of seats in the House of Commons are also in play, but none of them have a real shot of gaining enough seats to elect the prime minister.
When are the next Canadian elections?
Under Canadian electoral law, the country must hold the next federal elections no later than Oct. 20, 2025. However, the law also provides that the elections can be called earlier by order of the prime minister, so Oct. 20 is a deadline, not a firm date.
Liberal Party sources speaking to Reuters indicated that Carney is expected to call an election “soon,” but until that happens, we don’t know precisely when it’ll be. There’s the October deadline, but it’s looking highly unlikely that it’ll take that long.
Communicating with CNET via email, Kelly Saunders, a professor and head of the political science department at Manitoba’s Brandon University, said signs are pointing to Carney calling for a snap election on Sunday, March 23, which narrows down the window for when they’ll be held, given the country’s requirements.
“Under our electoral laws, election campaigns have to be a minimum of 37 days and a maximum of 51 days, which puts election day either April 28 or May 5,” Saunders wrote.
How often does Canada hold federal elections?
At first glance, the timelines for Canadian elections might look a little familiar to those in the US, but there are some key differences. The country’s electoral laws hold that these elections must be held no later than four years after the previous round, but within that timeframe, a prime minister can call elections at any time if it is deemed necessary. You’ll often hear this called a “snap election.” If one of these isn’t called, the elections must be held on the third Monday of October in the fourth year since the last ones.
Unlike American elections where presidential races have a set calendar (i.e., 2024, 2028, 2032, etc.), Canadian federal elections can shift based on when snap elections are called. So, while the next deadline after this year’s election would be October 2029, if a prime minister called a snap election in, say, 2026, the deadline for the next one would be in 2030, and so on and so forth.
What will the election results mean for the US trade war?
As mentioned earlier, both Carney and Poilievre have expressed opposition to Trump’s recent rhetoric and actions against Canada, though it’s still expected a Liberal government would push back more than a Conservative one. Polls have shown that Canadian voters’ No. 1 issue heading into a new election cycle is the handling of this dynamic with the US, so that contrast could have big implications for both the election results and Canada’s policies moving forward.
Saunders noted to CNET that the ideological similarities between US Republicans and Canadian Conservatives could mean that a Liberal government would inherently have a more “prickly” relationship with Trump.
“It is important to remember, however, that the Conservatives are a conservative party, and hence share some of the same values and priorities as the Republicans,” she explained. “Like Trump, Poilievre has condemned what he has called ‘extreme wokeism’ in Canada, has supported the so-called ‘parental rights’ movement in Canada that limits the rights of trans kids in schools, on sports teams, and access to gender affirming health care, as well as other social conservative values.
“From an ideological perspective the Liberals reject pretty much everything Trump stands for, in terms of gender identity, reproductive rights, immigration, DEI, etc. So despite what Trump recently said about preferring to work with a Liberal PM, I think the relationship would be more prickly under a Liberal government than a Conservative one, given that the Liberals are more aligned with the Democrats and the Conservatives more so with the Republicans. But both Carney and Poilievre are going to continue to take a tough stand on the issue of tariffs, counter-tariffs and pushing back on Canada as the 51st state, so either way the relationship is going to be rocky.”
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