As the dust settles from the 2025 federal election, the Liberals have retained a minority government - but amid a growing Conservative presence in Ottawa and a devasted NDP party.
Under the new leadership of Mark Carney, the April 28 vote has resulted in the Liberals earning a projected 169 seats in the House of Commons – just three shy of the representation needed to for a majority. This is more than the 153 the Liberals previously held in the last Parliament, but Conservatives saw their representation grow more markedly, increasing from the 120 seats at the last sitting of the House to a projected 144. Meanwhile the Bloc Quebecois kept 22 seats – losing 11 from the last Parliament – and the New Democrats saw their representation fall from 25 to just seven. The Green Party’s representation fell from two to one.
On Vancouver Island, the election transformed how the region will be represented. The last federal election in 2021 saw the entire Island go orange – except for Elizabeth May’s long-held Green tenure in Saanich-Gulf Islands. May kept that seat in the most recent vote, while the NDP lost all of its Vancouver Island seats except for Gord Johns’ victory in Courtenay-Alberni. Representing the area since 2015, Johns earned 39.6 per cent of the riding’s votes, beating Conservative candidate Kris McNichol by 4,010 ballots.
“It was an incredibly difficult campaign,” admitted Johns the day after the election. “There was a lot of people who voted for the Liberals, for example, that were New Democrats we lost in this election as well. We heard that on the doorstep. People voting strategically to stop the Conservatives.”
Liberal support on Vancouver Island was more significant than in past votes, and for the first time in 52 years the party won a seat with convincing victories in Victoria and the neighbouring Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke.
Conservatives won elsewhere on the Island, possibly benefitting from their competition being split between the Liberals and the NDP. This is evident in looking at the results from North Island-Powell River, where Aaron Gunn won a seat for the Conservatives.
“When you look at the north island as well you can see that the vast majority of votes were cast for Liberal and NDP candidates, but the conservative was able to split those,” said Estair Van Wagner, associate professor at the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Law. “The NDP has some serious soul searching to do in terms of where they go from here.”
As the results became clear, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh gave an emotional farewell to his supporters, announcing his resignation after coming in a distant third in his riding of Burnaby Central. With just seven seats, the NDP have lost official party status in Ottawa.
“It means that they don’t have guaranteed airtime in question period,” said Michael Prince, a political scientist, social policy and public administration expert, of the NDP’s loss of official party status. “You lose certain rights and privileges and certain resources, staff support that’s really critical for a small party in being efficient.”
Johns admitted that the Conservatives gave effective messaging during the campaign, with short and simple slogans that reached “everyday people”.
“Our failure as a party has been able to deliver a succinct clear message to people about what’s really driving the failed policies that people desperately need to be implemented,” he said. “People are confused and they’re buying into slogans and narratives of things that aren’t going to solve our problems.”
Prince attributes the NDP’s results to the “Trump effect”, after the US president took aim at Canada when he took office in January with threats of crushing tariffs and even annexation into the United States.
“Most of us were quite surprised at how quickly and aggressively and consistently he focused on Canada in those first few weeks,” said Prince. “I think that triggered a pretty strong reaction across the country.”
The national reaction turned the election into a “two-party race”, noted Prince, as many concerned NDP supporters put their vote behind Carney and the Liberals in the face of the threat south of the border.
“The rhetoric Mr. Singh was using in the campaign was good-old fashioned left-wing rhetoric about Mr. Carney just knows his corporate elite friends,” commented Prince. “There may be truth to some of that, but it certainly didn’t grow his base and it didn’t fit into the general anxiety a lot of Canadians were feeling about the tariffs.”
Two Conservative Vancouver Island candidates, Jeff Kibble in Cowichan-Malahat-Langford and Aaron Gunn in North Island-Powell River, won their seats despite a clear reluctance to engage with media or participate in public forums. This was in the case with some other Conservative candidates, a sign of the Stephen Harper-era practice of keeping the media and public at an arms length, observed Prince. The Ha-Shilth-Sa reached out to Gunn and Kibble for comment, but they did not respond by press time.
“I think there was some general instructions from the party, from the headquarters, not to engage,” said Prince.
On April 22 an all-candidates debate in Campbell River was called off shortly before the event, as Aaron Gunn refused to participate. Safety concerns led to the cancellation due to expected protests and counter protests.
Gunn drew controversy during the campaign from online comments made between 2019 and 2021. He denied residential schools were a genocide but something that some First Nations asked for. In the face the heated criticism from some Indigenous groups, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre stood by his candidate.
Apart from the sparks aroused by Gunn’s comments, First Nations rights held a markedly low priority on the national stage this spring. Van Wagner is seeing a national trend towards faster approval times for natural resource developments and the cutting of red tape.
“That tends to mean that we’re curtailing consultation and that Indigenous decision making is not front and centre,” she said. “Unfortunately, I think there is a possibility that respect for Indigenous authority and decision making could be challenged by the narrative that the Liberals are putting forward right now, about expediting natural resource and infrastructure projects.”
“Right now, the House of Commons is on the verge of looking like a corporate boardroom,” said Johns. “It’s the corporate controlled parties, the Liberals and Conservatives combined, that have failed to deliver polices that support people and protect people.”
Even so, the long-serving MP is prepared to work with any party in the new minority government, hoping that debate in the House of Commons won’t be as toxic as in recent years. The future of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is uncertain, after he lost the Ottawa-area riding he held for the last 20 years.
“I’m going to be going back with a unity message, and also a very clear message from people at Courtenay-Alberni that they don’t want us to be left out,” said Johns.
