The 42nd Canadian federal election was held on October 19, 2015. The incumbent Conservative Party of Canada of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in office since 2006, was defeated by the Liberal Party of Canada under the leadership of Justin Trudeau. The Liberals rebounded from third place in the House of Commons with 36 seats to a strong majority government with 184 of the 338 seats in the expanded Commons. The Liberals picked up 148 seats, easily the biggest numerical increase for a Canadian party since Confederation.

Summary

At 9:41pm EDT, October 19, 2015, CBC News projected that the Liberals had won at least a minority government, and that leader Justin Trudeau would become the next Prime Minister of Canada. Less than an hour later, at 10:36pm EDT, CBC News projected a Liberal majority. The New Democratic Party lost more than half the seats they had held, with Tom Mulcair becoming the first major party leader to concede defeat. The Conservatives dropped down to 99 seats to form the main opposition party, and Stephen Harper resigned as leader of the Conservative Party. The Bloc Québécois regained some ridings they had lost in the previous election, but party leader Giles Duceppe failed to regain the seat he lost back in 2011. Green Party leader Elizabeth May kept her seat.

According to preliminary figures from Elections Canada, more than 68 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot, or about 17,546,697 registered electors—a seven percentage point increase from the 2011 federal election, when turnout was just more than 61 per cent.

Synopsis of results

Result overview + ↓ 184 99 44 10 1

Summary analysis PartyVotesSeats6,930,136 20.6%5,600,496 7.7%3,461,262 10.9%818,652 1.2%605,864 0.5%

+ Elections to the 42nd Parliament of Canada – seats won/lost by party, 2011–2015Party2011 (redistributed)Gain from (loss to)2015LibConNDPBQ Grn36 88 58 2 184188 (88) 6 (8) 1 99109 (58) 8 (6) (9) 444 (2) (1) 9 101 1Total 338 – (148) 96 (7) 73 (8) 3 (9) – 338

+ Party candidates in 2nd place Party in 1st place Party in 2nd place TotalLib Con NDP BQ Grn Ind 1116481 18481 18 99 2911 31 448 2 10 1 1 Total 118 123 841111 338

+ Principal races, according to 1st and 2nd-place results Parties Seats 1929329165111 Total338

+ Seats won, by share of vote going to winning candidate Party in 1st place >50% 45-49.9% 40-44.9% 35-39.9% <35% Total87 48 26 13 10 18442 24 20 8 5 993 4 12 14 11 44 2 1 7 101 1 Total 133 76 60 36 33 338

Detailed analysis

Turnout The election was notable for seeing voter turnout rise across all ages and sexes, and especially significant for the rise in younger voters. In particular, there was an increase of 1.2 million voters among those under the age of 35.

+ Voter turnout by age and sex, %, 2015 vs 2011Age20152011∆%Total Male FemaleTotal Male FemaleTotal Male FemaleCanada 66.1 64.1 68.0 58.5 57.3 59.6 7.6 4.5 8.418 to 24 years 57.1 53.8 60.5 38.8 36.9 40.9 18.3 16.9 19.61st time voters 58.3 54.9 61.9 40.5 38.4 42.8 17.7 16.4 19.1Not 1st time 55.1 52.0 58.3 37.8 36.0 39.8 17.3 16.0 18.525 to 34 years 57.4 54.3 60.5 45.1 42.5 47.7 12.3 11.8 12.835 to 44 years 61.9 58.7 65.1 54.5 51.5 47.5 7.4 4.2 17.645 to 54 years 66.6 63.6 69.6 64.5 62.1 66.9 2.1 1.5 2.755 to 64 years 73.7 71.4 76.0 71.5 70.7 72.2 2.3 0.7 3.865 to 74 years 78.8 79.0 78.6 75.1 77.4 73.1 3.7 1.6 5.575 years and over 67.4 74.1 62.8 60.3 69.5 54.2 7.1 4.6 8.6

Geographic voting distributions

Party summaries Liberals In the previous election, the Liberals were cut down to 34 seats, the fewest they had ever won in their history. It was the first time since the nation's founding that the Liberals had not been either in government or the Official Opposition. They picked up one additional seat in a by-election and one via a floor-crossing.

While the Liberals had been expected to regain much of what they had lost in 2011, they tallied the second-best performance in their history; the 184 seats was bettered only by the 191 they won in 1949. It was also the most seats that a party had won since the Progressive Conservatives won a record 211 in 1984.

The Liberal victory came mainly on the strength of a solid performance in the eastern part of the country. They took every seat in Atlantic Canada and Toronto, and won all but one seat in Ottawa. Most notably, they won 40 of Quebec's 78 seats, mostly on the strength of taking all but five seats in Montreal. It was the first time since 1980 that the Liberals had won the most seats in Quebec.

After going into the election with only four seats west of Ontario, the Liberals had their best showing in Western Canada in more than two decades. They not only took all but one seat in Winnipeg and all but two seats in Vancouver, but won seats in Alberta for the first time since 2004. Notably, they won two seats in Calgary; they had won only three seats there in their entire history prior to 2015, with their last win dating back to 1968. They were the only party to win seats in every province.

Conservatives The Conservatives lost 60 seats to become the Official Opposition. They held their own in their heartlands of rural western Canada and central Ontario, and managed a respectable showing in southwestern Ontario and the more rural areas of eastern Ontario. However, they suffered heavy losses in urban southern Ontario, a region which had swung heavily to them in 2011. They lost all of their seats in Toronto itself and all but three in the 905 region. They also lost all of their seats in Winnipeg and Vancouver, as well as Atlantic Canada. It is the first time in decades that there are no centre-right MPs east of Quebec. They did, however, manage to make some gains in francophone areas of Quebec, mostly at the expense of the NDP.

Several members of Harper's cabinet were defeated, including Bernard Valcourt, Leona Aglukkaq, Gail Shea, Chris Alexander, Joe Oliver and Julian Fantino among others.

New Democrats The NDP, the Official Opposition in the previous parliament, fell to third place with 44 seats, losing more than half of their caucus. For the most part, their support bled over to the Liberals, though they lost a few areas of francophone Quebec to the Conservatives and Bloc.

Bloc Québecois The Bloc made a modest recovery after being nearly decimated in 2011, rebounding to 10 seats. However, Gilles Duceppe, who had been the longest-serving party leader in Canada at the time of his defeat in 2011, failed to win back his old seat of Laurier—Sainte-Marie. The party also received a smaller share of the popular vote than in the last election. As such, their gains could be attributable to NDP-Liberal vote splitting in francophone ridings more than a surge in popular support.

Contributing factors to party success The parties had varying degrees of success by region and by socioeconomic factors. An analysis by The Globe and Mail shortly after the election was held revealed significant differences:

+ Party support arising from certain key factors by region in the Canadian general election (2015), as a proportion of the ridings wonRegionIncome (Median household)Unemployment rateVisible minority population<$35,810 $35,810$141,720 >$141,720 Low (4%6%) High (9%22%) Low (<2.41%) High (>26.8%)AtlanticQuebec OntarioPrairiesBritish ColumbiaN/AThe North

Results by province Party name BC AB SK MB ON QC NB NS PE NL YT NT NU Total    LiberalSeats: 17 4 1 7 80 40 10 11 4 7 1 1 1 184Vote: 35.2 24.6 23.9 44.6 44.8 35.7 51.6 61.9 58.3 64.5 53.6 48.3 47.2 39.5     ConservativeSeats: 10 29 10 5 33 12 – – – – – – – 99Vote: 30.0 59.5 48.5 37.3 35.0 16.7 25.3 17.9 19.3 10.3 24.0 18.0 24.8 31.9     New Democratic PartySeats: 14 1 3 2 8 16 – – – – – – – 44Vote: 25.9 11.6 25.1 13.8 16.6 25.4 18.3 16.4 16.0 21.0 19.5 30.8 26.5 19.7     Bloc QuébécoisSeats: – – – – – 10 – – – – – – – 10Vote: – – – – – 19.3 – – – – – – – 4.7     GreenSeats: 1 – – – – – – – – – – – – 1Vote: 8.2 2.5 2.1 3.2 2.9 2.3 4.6 3.4 6.0 1.1 2.9 2.8 1.5 3.4     Independent and no affiliationVote: 0.1 0.8 0.2 0.6 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.3 – 2.9 – – – 0.2Total seats 42 34 14 14 121 78 10 11 4 7 1 1 1 338

10 closest ridings Electoral district1st-place candidate2nd-place candidateWon byConfirmed on recountElmwood—TransconaMBDaniel BlaikieLawrence Toet61 votesDesnethé—Missinippi—Churchill RiverSKGeorgina JoliboisLawrence Joseph71 votesBarrie—Springwater—Oro-MedonteONAlex NuttallBrian Tamblyn86 votesEdmonton Mill WoodsABAmarjeet SohiTim Uppal92 votesRegina—LewvanSKErin WeirTrent Fraser132 votesHastings—Lennox and AddingtonONMike BossioDaryl Kramp225 votesKitchener—ConestogaONHarold AlbrechtTim Louis251 votesMontmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-LoupQCBernard GénéreuxMarie-Josée Normand272 votesKootenay—ColumbiaBCWayne StetskiDavid Wilks282 votesJonquièreQCKarine TrudelMarc Pettersen339 votes

Significant results among independent and minor party candidates Those candidates not belonging to a major party, receiving more than 1,000 votes in the election, are listed below:

+ Significant vote tallies for independent and minor party candidates Riding Candidate Votes PlacedAvalon NL Scott Andrews 7,501 2ndAvignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia QC Jean-François Fortin 4,229 4thBattlefords—Lloydminster SK Doug Anguish 1,076 4thCoquitlam—Port Coquitlam BC Lewis Clarke Dahlby 1,014 5thDauphin—Swan River—Neepawa MB Inky Mark 3,357 4thNew Westminster—Burnaby BC Rex Brocki 1,368 5thNiagara West ON Harold Jonker 1,234 5thOxford ON Melody Ann Aldred 1,175 5thPortage—Lisgar MB Jerome DondoPresident of the CHP 1,315 5thRenfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke ON Hector Clouthier 6,300 3rdRepentigny QC Johnathan Cloutier 1,333 5thSt. Albert—Edmonton AB Brent Rathgeber 11,652 3rdScarborough Centre ON Katerina Androutsos 1,384 4thSherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan AB James FordHad placed 2nd in the previous two elections in the former riding of Edmonton—Sherwood Park 1,563 5thToronto—Danforth ON John Richardson 1,275 5thYork South—Weston ON Stephen Lepone 1,041 4th

Retiring incumbents

Defeated MPs

Bold indicates Cabinet Minister or member of Opposition shadow cabinet ‡ means that Incumbent was originally from a different riding