Elections in Canada

holds elections for legislatures or governments in several jurisdictions: for the federal government, provincial and territorial governments, and municipal governments. Elections are also held for self-governing First Nations and for many other public and private organizations including corporations and trade unions. Municipal elections can also be held for both upper-tier and lower-tier governments.
Formal elections have occurred in Canada since at least 1792, when both Upper Canada and Lower Canada had their first elections. Canada's first recorded election was held in Halifax in 1758 to elect the 1st General Assembly of Nova Scotia.
All Canadian citizens aged 18 or older may register and vote in federal elections. Elections for other levels of government may have additional residency or ownership requirements. For example, some municipalities allow both residents and non-resident landowners to vote.
The most recent Canadian federal election occurred on April 28, 2025. The Constitution limits terms for Parliament and all provincial legislatures to five years; current legislation fixes terms at four years at the federal level and in every province except Nova Scotia. However, as in other Westminster systems, a parliamentary term may still be ended early due to a successful vote of no confidence or a snap election called by the ruling government. Though not impossible, there have never been two general elections in the same calendar year, either at the federal level or in any province or territory.
Although only the first past the post election system is used currently in federal and all provincial elections in Canada, federal elections in the 1867-1870 period and elections in each province used other election systems and multi-member districts at one time or another between 1867 and 1996. Through the years, Canadians have seen numerous instances of electoral reform and attempted electoral reform. Notably, attempts to change from first past the post to a different electoral system by referendum failed in B.C. in 2005 and 2018, P.E.I. in 2005, 2016, and 2019, and Ontario in 2007. The territory of Yukon will hold a referendum on electoral reform on November 3, 2025. Referendums on electoral reform have been proposed or cancelled in other provinces.

Latest election

Electoral regulatory bodies

Elections in Canada are organised by their respective election regulatory bodies as follows:

Jurisdiction

Electoral regulatory body

Periodic oversight of legislative seat contests in any given election

Date of most recent major election

Next major election scheduled for / required by

National (federal) elections

The Parliament of Canada has two chambers: the House of Commons has 343 members, elected for a maximum five-year term in single-seat electoral districts through first-past-the-post voting, and the Senate has 105 members appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister. Senators are given permanent terms and thus often serve much longer than the prime minister who was primarily responsible for their appointment.
National elections are governed by the Canada Elections Act and administered by an independent agency, Elections Canada. Canadians vote for their choice for local Member of Parliament, who will hold a seat in the House of Commons. Under first-past-the-post voting, the plurality winner is elected and then votes as the named representative of that specific constituency in the House of Commons. But in practice usually voting in line with other members of their party caucus in the House of Commons.
The leader of the party most likely to hold the confidence of the House of Commons becomes the prime minister. They stay in power as long as they hold the support of a majority of MPs in the House of Commons.
Most MPs are members of a political party, although candidates may stand for election and be elected as independents unaffiliated with any political party. The practice of listing candidates' party affiliation on ballots began with the 1972 election. Since then, the Canada Elections Act has required that a local candidate running under a party label be directly approved by the leader of their affiliated party, effectively centralizing the candidate nomination process.
Once MPs are elected, sitting members of parliament are permitted to "cross the floor" switching party affiliation without having to first resign and restand for office under their new affiliation. Sitting members may also be dismissed from or voluntarily leave their party and become independents. By-elections also may change the party seat counts. As a result, the distribution of seats by party affiliation often fluctuates between elections.
Although several parties are typically represented in parliament, Canada historically has had two dominant political parties: the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, which was preceded by the Progressive Conservative Party and the Conservative Party. However, in the 2011 federal election, the New Democratic Party of Canada, took the second largest caucus. While other parties have sometimes formed the Official Opposition, the 41st Parliament was the first in which the Liberals did not form either the government or the Official Opposition.
Every government since Confederation has been either Liberal or Conservative with the exception of the Unionist government during World War I, which was a coalition of Conservatives and some Liberals. Most have been majority governments. Many times due to strong showing by "third parties", no party captured a majority of seats in the House of Commons, thus producing a minority government. Faced with such a situation, the Liberals and the NDP signed a Confidence and Supply Agreement in 2022, the first of its kind in Canada.
If a government loses a confidence motion, traditionally the prime minister asks the governor general to call an election and traditionally the governor general follows that advice. However, the viceroy's compliance is not assured -- the governor general has the right to seek out another party leader who is thought to command the confidence of the House and ask them to form a government. This happened in 1926 and is referred to as the King–Byng Affair.
Strictly speaking, the five-year time limitation is applied to the life of the parliament or assembly in question — that body is not deemed to have been formed until the return of the writs and ceases to exist the moment it is dissolved. It is therefore legally possible for slightly more than five years to elapse between election days, as was the case between the 1930 and 1935 elections. As well, under emergency situations it is possible to extend the life of the government as Prime Minister Borden did - the 1917 election took place six years and three months after the previous election.
Although the law allows for a five-year gap between election and dissolution, there have been in fact only two gaps since 1974 that approached the five-year limit: 1974-1979 and 1988-1993. When no party secures a majority of seats, it is common for a government to last just a couple years or less. As well, a party with a majority of seats may decide to call an election early, hoping to win more seats and fearing that postponement will lower its chances for reelection. At the federal level, there have been eight general elections since 2000.
All provinces had brought in fixed-term legislation, dictating that a government will run only four years, but even where such legislation is in effect, variation is possible.
It is also possible for a general election to be delayed should Canada be embroiled in a war or insurrection. This provision was enacted to allow Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden to delay a federal election for about a year during the First World War. Since then, the provision has only been used twice, both times by provincial governments — Ontario delayed an election for a few weeks in the year following the Armistice in 1918. Saskatchewan was the only jurisdiction to delay a general election by more than a year, due to World War II, but held an election in 1944, one week more than six years after the previous vote.
The Canadian population generally misunderstands the electoral system, with most citizens believing they vote to directly elect the prime minister; that the majority choice is elected in each district; that a majority government in the House of Commons had support of a majority of voters; that a party with the most seats in the House of Commons has the right to control the House of Commons. In 2008, Conservative politicians tried to use the public's misconception of how governments are formed to defend its decision to maintain its grip on power despite not having a majority of seats in the House of Commons. Attempts to correct erroneous claims are often delegitimized as politically motivated.

Results

Hugo Cyr found in 2017 that the Canadian media's habit of announcing, before polls close on election nights, which party will form the next government misrepresents the process of the governor general or lieutenant governors appointing cabinet or executive councils, respectively, "as automatic, merely a matter of arithmetic".
The leader of a party that secures a majority of seats in the House of Commons or other legislative assembly is the obvious choice to be prime minister or premier. And when no party has majority of seats, the leader of the political party that wins the plurality of seats in the elected body is typically called by the governor general or lieutenant governor to form a government. But this is not a requirement. The relevant viceroy must appoint as head of government whoever can command the confidence of the elected house. This means a party that does not win the majority of seats, or even the plurality of seats in an election, can still govern if it allies itself with another party or other parties in the same legislative chamber, so as to, combined, hold the majority of seats, whether forming a coalition government or not. Only a few coalition governments have existed in Canadian history. To produce a working majority, Liberals and the NDP signed a Confidence and Supply Agreement in 2022, the first of its kind in Canada, which allowed the Liberal minority government to rule for longer than most minority governments have done so historically. In many cases, minority governments have been sustained in power due to passage of bills by ad hoc case-by-case multi-party support, at least for a couple years.
Due to many votes not being used to elect the winner in each of the 340 or so ridings in Canada, a party's share of seats in the House of Commons may vary considerably from the party's share of votes cast. Smaller parties have almost always received fewer seats than their due share. Disproportional artificially-produced one-party sweep of a province's seats is often produced. On occasion a party with more votes may receive fewer seats than a party with fewer votes. Such situations lead some to call for electoral reform and proportional representation.