Cana­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Mark Car­ney’s Lib­er­al Par­ty has won the fed­er­al elec­tion, cap­ping a stun­ning turn­around in for­tunes fu­elled by U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s an­nex­a­tion threats and trade war.

Car­ney’s ri­val, pop­ulist Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty leader Pierre Poilievre, was vot­ed out of his seat in Par­lia­ment, the Cana­di­an Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion pro­ject­ed Tues­day.

The loss of his seat rep­re­sent­ing his Ot­tawa dis­trict in Mon­day’s elec­tion capped a swift de­cline in for­tunes for the fire­brand Poilievre, who a few months ago ap­peared to be a shoo-in to be­come Cana­da’s next prime min­is­ter and shep­herd the Con­ser­v­a­tives back in­to pow­er for the first time in a decade.

But then Trump launched a trade war with Cana­da and sug­gest­ed the coun­try should be­come the 51st state, out­rag­ing vot­ers and up­end­ing the elec­tion.

Poilievre, a ca­reer politi­cian, cam­paigned with Trump-like brava­do, tak­ing a page from the “Amer­i­ca First” pres­i­dent by adopt­ing the slo­gan “Cana­da First.” But his sim­i­lar­i­ties to Trump may have ul­ti­mate­ly cost him and his par­ty.

The Lib­er­als were pro­ject­ed to win more of Par­lia­ment’s 343 seats than the Con­ser­v­a­tives. It wasn’t im­me­di­ate­ly clear if they would win an out­right ma­jor­i­ty — at least 172 — or would need to re­ly on a small­er par­ty to pass leg­is­la­tion and re­main in pow­er.

Elec­tions Cana­da said it has de­cid­ed to pause count­ing of spe­cial bal­lots — cast by vot­ers who are away from their dis­tricts dur­ing the elec­tion — un­til lat­er Tues­day morn­ing. The Lib­er­als were lead­ing or elect­ed in 168 seats when the count­ing was paused, four short of a ma­jor­i­ty. Elec­tions Cana­da es­ti­mat­ed that the un­count­ed votes could af­fect the re­sult in about a dozen dis­tricts.

The de­ci­sion means Cana­di­ans won’t know un­til lat­er in the day whether Car­ney’s Lib­er­als have won a mi­nor­i­ty or ma­jor­i­ty man­date.

In a vic­to­ry speech, Car­ney stressed the im­por­tance of uni­ty in the face of Wash­ing­ton’s threats. He al­so said the mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial sys­tem Cana­da and the U.S. had shared since World War II had end­ed.

“We are over the shock of the Amer­i­can be­tray­al, but we should nev­er for­get the lessons,” he said.

“As I’ve been warn­ing for months, Amer­i­ca wants our land, our re­sources, our wa­ter, our coun­try,” Car­ney added. “These are not idle threats. Pres­i­dent Trump is try­ing to break us so Amer­i­ca can own us. That will nev­er ... ever hap­pen. But we al­so must rec­og­nize the re­al­i­ty that our world has fun­da­men­tal­ly changed.”

A de­feat for the Con­ser­v­a­tives

Poilievre hoped to make the elec­tion a ref­er­en­dum on for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau, whose pop­u­lar­i­ty de­clined to­ward the end of his decade in pow­er as food and hous­ing prices rose.

But Trump at­tacked, Trudeau re­signed and Car­ney, a two-time cen­tral banker, be­came the Lib­er­al Par­ty’s leader and prime min­is­ter.

In a con­ces­sion speech be­fore the race call on his own seat, Poilievre vowed to keep fight­ing for Cana­di­ans.

“We are cog­nizant of the fact that we didn’t get over the fin­ish line yet,” Poilievre told sup­port­ers. “We know that change is need­ed, but change is hard to come by. It takes time. It takes work. And that’s why we have to learn the lessons of tonight — so that we can have an even bet­ter re­sult the next time Cana­di­ans de­cide the fu­ture of the coun­try.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Anaida Poilievre wave as they leave the stage Tuesday, April 29, 2025 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

Adrian Wyld

Poilievre can still lead the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty.

Even with Cana­di­ans grap­pling with the fall­out from a dead­ly week­end at­tack at a Van­cou­ver street fes­ti­val, Trump was trolling them on elec­tion day, sug­gest­ing again on so­cial me­dia that Cana­da should be­come the 51st state and say­ing he was on their bal­lot. He al­so er­ro­neous­ly claimed that the U.S. sub­si­dizes Cana­da, writ­ing, “It makes no sense un­less Cana­da is a State!”

Trump’s tru­cu­lence has in­fu­ri­at­ed Cana­di­ans, lead­ing many to can­cel U.S. va­ca­tions, refuse to buy Amer­i­can goods and pos­si­bly even vote ear­ly. A record 7.3 mil­lion Cana­di­ans cast bal­lots be­fore elec­tion day.

Reid War­ren, a Toron­to res­i­dent, said he vot­ed Lib­er­al be­cause Poilievre “sounds like mi­ni-Trump to me.” He said Trump’s tar­iffs are a wor­ry.

“Cana­di­ans com­ing to­geth­er from, you know, all the shade be­ing thrown from the States is great, but it’s def­i­nite­ly cre­at­ed some tur­moil, that’s for sure,” he said.

His­to­ri­an Robert Both­well said Poilievre ap­pealed to the “same sense of griev­ance” as Trump, but that it ul­ti­mate­ly worked against him.

“The Lib­er­als ought to pay him,” Both­well said, re­fer­ring to the U.S. pres­i­dent. “Trump talk­ing is not good for the Con­ser­v­a­tives.”

The Lib­er­al way for­ward

Car­ney and the Lib­er­als se­cured a new term, but they have daunt­ing chal­lenges ahead.

If they don’t win a ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment, the Lib­er­als might need re­ly on one of the small­er par­ties. The Bloc Québé­cois, which looked set to fin­ish third, is a sep­a­ratist par­ty from French-speak­ing Que­bec that seeks in­de­pen­dence. Trudeau’s Lib­er­als re­lied on the New De­moc­rats to re­main in pow­er for four years, but the pro­gres­sive par­ty fared poor­ly on Mon­day and its leader, Jag­meet Singh, said he was step­ping down af­ter eight years in charge.

“This is a dra­mat­ic come­back, but if the Lib­er­als can­not win a ma­jor­i­ty of seats, po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty in a new mi­nor­i­ty Par­lia­ment could com­pli­cate things for them,” said McGill Uni­ver­si­ty po­lit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor Daniel Bé­land.

For­eign pol­i­cy hasn’t dom­i­nat­ed a Cana­di­an elec­tion this much since 1988, when, iron­i­cal­ly, free trade with the Unit­ed States was the pre­vail­ing is­sue.

In ad­di­tion to the trade war with the U.S. and frosty re­la­tion­ship with Trump, Cana­da is deal­ing with a cost-of-liv­ing cri­sis. And more than 75% of its ex­ports go to the U.S., so Trump’s tar­iffs threat and his de­sire to get North Amer­i­can au­tomak­ers to move Cana­da’s pro­duc­tion south could se­vere­ly dam­age the Cana­di­an econ­o­my.

While cam­paign­ing, Car­ney vowed that every dol­lar the gov­ern­ment col­lects from counter-tar­iffs on U.S. goods will go to­ward Cana­di­an work­ers who are ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by the trade war. He al­so said he plans to keep den­tal care in place, of­fer a mid­dle-class tax cut, re­turn im­mi­gra­tion to sus­tain­able lev­els and in­crease fund­ing to Cana­da’s pub­lic broad­cast­er, the Cana­di­an Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion. —TORON­TO (AP)

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Sto­ry by ROB GILLIES | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porter Mike House­hold­er con­tributed to this re­port.