Canada: Political Parties & Elections

Canadian federal politics has long been dominated by the center-left Liberal Party and the center-right Conservative Party, with the social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), the Quebec-sovereigntist Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party typically holding smaller blocs of seats in the House of Commons. Members of Parliament are elected from single-member ridings under a first-past-the-post system, which can produce either majority or minority governments depending on how the vote splits among the parties.

Mark Carney became Liberal Party leader and prime minister in March 2025 after Justin Trudeau's resignation, and he led the Liberals to a fourth consecutive term in the April 2025 federal election, campaigning heavily on standing up to tariffs and annexation threats from the United States. The Liberals won about 44 percent of the vote and initially fell just three seats short of a majority, forming a minority government, before a series of floor-crossings gave Carney's government a working majority in the House of Commons by April 2026. The Conservative Party remained the official opposition, while the NDP was reduced to a small handful of seats and lost official party status.

The House of Commons has 343 seats, with members elected to represent individual ridings across the country. Canada's Senate, the upper chamber, has 105 seats filled by appointment rather than election; senators are named by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister, drawing since 2016 on recommendations from an Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments intended to reduce direct partisan control over the chamber.