Carney is taking office without winning an election, and the countdown to Canada’s next vote is already underway. Here’s what makes this transition rare — and what happens next.
After Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership in a landslide on March 9, he will officially be named the 24th prime minister in Canadian history on Friday. Canadians are now awaiting announcements when a federal election will be called, widely expected to come in the next few weeks.
Before that can happen, though, there is some parliamentary tradition to follow.
First, there’s the matter of Carney replacing Justin Trudeau. Carney will meet with Governor General Mary Simon to be sworn in as prime minister on March 14, Rideau Hall confirmed.
The general consensus is that Carney will call an election before parliament is due to return on March 24. In what amounts to a formality, Simon would need to accept the prime minister’s reasoning for the election call.
But if parliament did resume, both Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh have said they would vote against the Liberals in a non-confidence vote, triggering an election.
At the same time he’s sworn in, Carney will appoint a new cabinet to deal with the general running of the country during a campaign. The speculation is that the cabinet will be a much smaller one than the current 37-member cabinet that existed under Trudeau.
Whoever ends up winning the election, the tariff war with U.S. President Donald Trump will be front and centre during the campaign. While the fight between the countries has never been this bitter, future trade with the U.S. has been a major issue in many previous elections.
Below, the Ottawa Citizen takes a closer look at the ins and outs of what promises to be a compelling election. Key issues figure to be trade and the general economy. The head-to-head battle between the Conservatives and Liberals will pit the career politician Poilievre against Carney, who has no elected experience.
Who are the party leaders?
Carney, who turns 60 on March 16, is stepping out of the financial industry into the political ring. Born in the Northwest Territories, he studied at both Harvard and Oxford University. Carney worked in the finance industry and the Canadian finance department before serving as Bank of Canada governor from 2008-13 and Bank of England governor from 2013-20. He returned to private practice and served as an informal advisor to Trudeau during COVID-19 and joined the Liberal Party’s economic growth task force in September last year.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, 45, was born in Calgary and went to the University of Ottawa before being first elected in the Nepean-Carleton riding (now Carleton) as a 25-year-old in 2004. Under former PM Stephen Harper, he served as minister for democratic reform and minister of employment and social development. In 2022, he succeeded Erin O’Toole as Conservative leader, winning 70 per cent of the vote at the Conservative leadership convention.
Evening Update
Jagmeet Singh, 46, replaced Tom Mulcair as NDP leader in 2017, but was not a sitting MP at the time. He was born in Scarborough, attended high school in the U.S. and graduated from the University of Western Ontario and York University’s Osgoode Hall law school. Singh lost in his first bid to become an MP in 2011, but won a seat as an Ontario MPP that same year. Singh joined parliament after winning a byelection in Burnaby in 2019 and won again in the 2019 federal election.
Yves-Francois Blanchet, 59, took over as unopposed Bloc Quebecois leader in 2019. Born in Drummondville, he’s a Universite de Montreal graduate. He served as a member of Quebec’s National Assembly from 2008-14, representing the Parti Quebecois.
The Green Party chose to have Jonathan Pedneault and long-time leader Elizabeth May serve as co-leaders of the party in 2023. Pedneault, 35, will serve as more of the public face of the campaign, and will represent the Greens in both English and French debates.
How is the winner of the election determined?
The country is divided into 343 ridings — an increase of five from the 2021 election — with candidates representing the parties running in each of those seats. It’s a “first past the post” system, meaning the candidate with the most votes — not necessarily a majority of the votes — wins the riding. The party that wins the most ridings wins the election. In order to win a majority in parliament, one party would need to win at least 172 of those seats.
The Liberals currently hold 153 seats, followed by the Conservatives (120), Bloc Quebecois (33), New Democratic Party (24) and Green Party (2).
What do the polls say?
The Liberals have been closing fast on the Conservatives in the past two months. A Leger poll March 9, the day Carney became the leader, had the Conservatives and Liberals in a dead heat, both at 37 per cent of the popular vote, followed by the NDP at 11, Bloc at 6 and Green at 5.
But that’s a rapid shift from the last few months. The breakdown from a Nanos poll on March 7: Conservatives (36 per cent) Liberals 35, NDP 15, Bloc 8 and Green 4. Go back 10-12 days from there: A March 1 Leger poll had the Conservatives holding a 43-30 lead on the Liberals and a Feb. 28 Nanos poll showed a 37-34 Conservative edge over the Liberals.
What would the current polling mean? A March 9 study by 338Canada, which provides a statistical model of electoral projections based on polls, electoral history and demographics, yielded the following numbers: Conservatives (39 per cent), Liberals (33), NDP (14), Bloc (7) and Green (4). That model also projected the Conservatives would win 156 seats, compared to 143 for the Liberals, 28 for the NDP, 14 for the Bloc and 2 for the Green Party.
Now, wouldn’t it be fascinating to see how a government could function with those totals?
For most of 2024, the Conservatives held a 15-20 per cent lead over the Liberals in most polls. When Trudeau announced plans to step down on Jan. 6, the 338Canada count had the Conservatives at 45 per cent, the Liberals at 20 and the NDP at 19.
What could happen on the campaign trail?
Conrad Winn, a veteran Carleton University political science professor, says the Liberals have enjoyed what amounts to free advertising due to the leadership campaign which brought Carney to power. In the process, they’ve removed some of the stain of disenchantment with the outgoing Trudeau. However, Winn says the Conservatives have been increasingly effective in picking away at apparent inconsistencies in Carney’s background.
While Trump and tariff talks dominate headlines, and a new wave of Canadian pride has emerged, Winn suggests voters have other issues on their minds, too, including a broader view of the economy.
“The underlying issue is extreme economic discomfort,” he said. “How we deal with the White House could be a temporary issue that could disappear by the next election. People instinctively worry about the younger generation. They’re very aware that young people have less money than ever.”
While the Liberals will attempt to link Poilievre to Trump — the anti-Conservative ads have been running for weeks — Winn says there’s a potential for it to turn the other way.
“A large portion of Canadians dislike Trump, but if they believe they need a leader who can deal with Trump, it could backfire,” he said.
And then there’s the not-so-small matter of political experience, including the toil of everyday campaigning and avoiding missteps along the way. Poilievre has won six elections, while Carney has never been involved in one.
When was the last time a prime minister stepped down rather than fighting an election?
Trudeau’s move to step down is not that unusual in the history of Canadian politics. In fact, there’s even family history on that score. (Stay tuned). In 1993, Progressive Conservative (“Progressive” was dropped from the name in 2003) leader Brian Mulroney stepped away after nine years running the country.
Defence Minister Kim Campbell won the party’s leadership battle, becoming Canada’s first female prime minister in the process.
Ultimately, it was a disaster. The PC’s were reduced to two seats (from 169 in the 1988 election), the most lopsided defeat for a governing party in Canadian history. Campbell also lost her own riding. The PC’s faced an uphill battle in the election, following the failure of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords and the introduction of the GST in 1991. Campbell didn’t help her own cause while campaigning, at one point telling a Maclean’s magazine reporter that “an election is no time to discuss serious issues.”
Liberal leader Jean Chretien became PM, winning 177 seats, more than doubling the party’s result from the 1987 election.
Campbell immediately stepped down as PC leader, having served as prime minister for 132 days. Jean Charest took over as interim leader.
When was the last time a sitting Liberal prime minister walked away before an election?
You could call the 2025 election deja vu all over again. In 1984, Trudeau — in this case, Pierre Trudeau — said his goodbyes as PM after the infamous walk in the snow that prompted the resignation decision.
In the ensuing Liberal leadership election, John Turner got the nod ahead of Chretien. Turner, a former minister of finance under Trudeau, had been out of politics for nine years.
In the 1984 election, Mulroney bulldozed to a colossal majority, winning 211 of 283 seats and a whopping 50.03 per cent of the overall vote. Turner’s Liberals won only 40 seats.
Turner’s stint as PM was even shorter than Campbell’s. He lasted a mere 79 days in the position.
What’s the record for the shortest prime minister stint?
As short as the tenure was for both Turner and Campbell, that dubious record is held by Conservative Sir Charles Tupper, Canada’s fifth prime minister. Way back in 1896, Tupper sat in the PM’s chair from May 1 to July 8, a mere 68-day stretch. Tupper had taken over the post from reigning PM Mackenzie Bowell, who could find no solution to the then-heated debate over public funding for French and Catholic schools in Manitoba.
Tupper won the popular vote, but Liberal Sir Wilfrid Laurier won the election largely on the basis of Quebec support.
Could Carney set a new mark?
It’s very possible he could ultimately hold that dubious distinction. Changes to the Elections Act in 1996 reduced the minimum length of an election campaign to 36 days from the previous 47 days.
There have been rumblings about a possible April 28 or May 5 date for the election. If it’s April 28, that would be 45 days from when Carney was named Prime Minister. If it’s May 5, the total would be 52 days.
What’s the record for the longest consecutive stretch as prime minister?
That would be Laurier, who won consecutive elections in 1896, 1900, 1904 and 1908. His 15 consecutive years in power ended with a 1911 election loss to Sir Robert Borden.
And what did Laurier think of free trade? He was generally supportive of the idea, but the American governments of the time weren’t interested.
In the end, Laurier’s National Policy was all about maintaining high tariffs on goods from countries that weren’t open to Canadian products.
Funny how history repeats itself. We’re now facing the same story all over again.
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