OTTAWA — OTTAWA - Elections Canada says more than 68 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the federal election – more than 19.5 million people.
While this election was widely expected to see increased turnout, it did not surpass the record set in March 1958, when 79.4 per cent of eligible Canadians voted.
But the nearly 68.7 per cent turnout was the best since the 1993 federal election, which saw 69.6 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot.
Elections Canada says early estimates indicate 11 million people voted at their polling station or in their long-term care facility on election day.
The agency says nearly 7.3 million Canadians voted at advance polls while 1.2 million voted by special ballot.
Elections Canada does not gather demographics data so it’s not clear which groups turned out to vote, but it says postelection surveys can show which groups faced barriers to voting and what can be done to address them in future elections.
The Liberal party ended the election with 43.7 per cent of the total vote and 169 seats, while the Conservative party secured 41.3 per cent of the vote and 144 seats.
The Bloc Quebecois and the NDP both took 6.3 per cent of the vote, and will hold 22 and seven seats, respectively.
Canadians apparently don’t realize how much of a privilege it is to be able to vote. Surprises me every time.
These numbers are really encouraging. Voter participation has been a serious issue on all levels of government for a long time, and hopefully this is the beginning of a reverse in trends. Canadians need to at least pay a minimum of attention to what their leaders are doing or else they’ll just do whatever they think they can get away with.
So many Canadian leaders sneak in absurd laws and policies and Canadians just don’t notice or say anything, and I say this in regards to all parties. Not saying anything, especially during elections, is a tacit approval. Because showing disapproval is the only way to make governments know that they can’t get away with ignoring the public good in favour of personal agendas.
The Bloc Quebecois and the NDP both took 6.3 per cent of the vote, and will hold 22 and seven seats, respectively.
Our electoral system is fundamentally misrepresentative by design. We desperately need proportional representation.
So about 69% of the voters elected 169 liberals? Nice.
I wish the turnout was higher, but I get it. Before voting I checked on how close the race in my riding was. It wasn’t. The Conservative candidate was projected to win a landslide victory with 99% confidence. I regret looking because it made me not even want to go out and vote. I did anyways thinking maybe there’ll be way more voters than normal this year. There wasn’t. The Conservative candidate won a landslide victory. Just like last election, and the one before that, and the one before that. I wasn’t even born yet the last time this riding wasn’t held by a Conservative. FPTP voting sucks.
I regret looking because it made me not even want to go out and vote.
This is the main reason I think poll prediction media should be banned during elections. People can change things by voting, but you’d never know it from the election “advice” plastered everywhere. I believe it promotes an apathy vote where people just stay home more than anything informative or otherwise useful.
ty for going anyway.
Our riding was projected 99% Conservative win but we went NDP. The riding specific forecasts are misleading, and I wonder how many important votes stayed home because they looked at the forecast and thought it was pointless.
My city is a giant retirement community pretending to be a city, so naturally a Conservative always wins. Didn’t stop me from voting anyway, because fuck 'em. Hopefully things change when the retirees biff it.
If the parties don’t see even marginal gains in a region they won’t bother putting resources towards increasing that growth and eventually flipping a seat.
If we ever get away from first past the post they also need to see that it would benefit them to have second place.
It’s important to vote regardless of the outcome.
Should there be a fine of $25 for not voting?
Not a bad idea
Sad that in the most consequential election in most Canadian’s lifetimes that more than 3 in 10 decided to stay home.
FPTP means that many votes have negligible impact, so it’s understandable why some don’t bother.
Probably would not change much with proportional representation. A surprising number of people just don’t care.
Terrible turnout. The worst part is knowing that the % of RW voters was probably 90+ % as usual, with the rest of us lagging way behind.
carney won by a little over 3.5% PP was still extremely close despite all the tariff and trump dic sucking by pp.
…and the Green Party took a single seat.
Well, you can thank Trudeau for that, reneging on his promise that we’d have electoral reform
I was watching This hour has 22 minutes and the host asked if a good outcome for the Greens would be more seats than leaders
The Green party is in shambles, they don’t even know who they are anymore. What the hell are “co-leaders”? It’s basically just a name for Elizabeth May’s independent status.
