The 2021 Canadian federal election was held on September 20, 2021, to elect members of the House of Commons to the 44th Canadian Parliament. The writs of election were issued by Governor General Mary Simon on August 15, 2021, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau requested the dissolution of parliament for a snap election.
Trudeau won a third term as prime minister, his second minority government. Though the Liberals were hoping to win a majority government in order to govern alone, the results were mostly unchanged from the 2019 Canadian federal election. The Liberals won the most seats at 160; as this fell short of the 170 seats needed for a majority in the House of Commons, they formed a minority government with support from other parties. The 2021 election set a new record for the lowest vote share for a party that would go on to form a single-party minority government. The Liberals won 32.6 per cent of the popular vote, while losing the popular vote to the Conservatives as they did in 2019.
The Conservatives led by Erin O'Toole won 119 seats, two fewer than their result in 2019, and continued as the Official Opposition. The Bloc Québécois led by Yves-François Blanchet won 32 seats, unchanged from the prior election. The New Democratic Party led by Jagmeet Singh won 25 seats, a net increase of one seat, but nonetheless fell short of expectations. The Green Party maintained two seats but party leader Annamie Paul was defeated for the third time in her riding of Toronto Centre. The party received 2.3 per cent of the popular vote, approximately a third of what they won in 2019. The People's Party did not win any seats, despite winning nearly 5 per cent of the popular vote, and party leader Maxime Bernier was defeated for the second time in his riding of Beauce.
Trudeau faced public blowback for holding an election in the middle of a global pandemic due to his expectation that doing so could translate his supposed rallying popularity into a landslide victory. Criticism worsened when Trudeau failed to win by a majority and instead repeated his 2019 election showing. An official government probe later found that China attempted to meddle in the election to influence Canadian foreign policy.
Paul resigned as Green Party leader two months after the election, and O'Toole was ousted as Conservative leader by his party's caucus in February 2022 over the poor showing in the election and other disagreements ongoing at the time. In March 2022, the NDP and Liberals formed a confidence and supply agreement which lasted until the NDP withdrew in September 2024.
The election was the second one in a row where the Liberals succeeded in winning a plurality of seats despite having fewer votes than the Conservative Party.
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Background.
The 2019 Canadian federal election resulted in the Liberals, led by incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, losing both their parliamentary majority and the popular vote but nevertheless winning the most seats and remaining in office as a minority government. The Conservatives, who had gained seats and won the popular vote, continued as the Official Opposition. The Bloc Québécois regained official party status and became the third party, replacing the New Democrats in that role, with the latter party losing seats but maintaining official party status as the fourth party. Although the Greens increased their seats in the House of Commons, they ultimately failed to achieve the required number of MPs (twelve) for official party status. No other party won any seats.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2019 federal election, all leaders initially announced that they would continue as the heads of their respective parties into the 43rd Canadian Parliament. Elizabeth May said that she might not lead the Greens into the 44th federal election, and ultimately resigned as Green Party leader on November 4, 2019. On November 6, 2019, the members of the Conservative caucus decided not to adopt a measure which would have given them the ability to remove Andrew Scheer as leader; his leadership would still have been reviewed at the party's next convention, which was scheduled for April 2020. On December 12, Scheer announced his intention to resign as leader. He stayed on until his successor Erin O'Toole was chosen and remains as the MP for Regina—Qu'Appelle.
On August 15, 2021, after a request from Prime Minister Trudeau, the Governor General dissolved parliament and called an election for September 20.
Political parties and standings.
The table below lists parties represented and seats held in the House of Commons after the 2019 federal election, at dissolution, and after the 2021 federal election. An expected by-election in Haldimand—Norfolk to fill the vacant seat was rendered moot by the commencement of the general election.
Incumbents not running for re-election.
Below are the 31 MPs who chose not to run in the 2021 federal election.
Incumbent not renominated.
One MP was not renominated by his party:
Timeline.
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Campaign.
Early campaign (August 2021).
The election call occurred at the same time as the fall of Kabul, on August 15. Trudeau thus received criticism for not acting fast enough in the face of the 2021 Taliban offensive to evacuate Canadians from Afghanistan, as well as Afghans who supported Canada's military and diplomatic efforts during the War.
Criticism of Trudeau's decision to call an early election, particularly amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, was a major theme of his opponents' campaigns, and commentators noted a lack of support for a snap election amongst the public.
The beginning of the campaign proved difficult for the Liberals, who slightly fell behind the Conservatives in the polls of voting intentions. The Conservative released their platform on the second day of the campaign. The party tried to change its image with this document by putting more focus on the environment, mental health, and LGBTQ+ rights issues. Meanwhile, Trudeau attacked the new Conservative leader Erin O'Toole on the topics of compulsory vaccination for federal officials, abortion and the privatization of health care.
On August 25, Minister for Women and Gender Equality Maryam Monsef referred to the Taliban as "our brothers". Many on social media shared the video of this statement, and saw this as an indication that she felt sympathetic to the terrorist group. Monsef said that this was false, and further stated that she only chose those words because Muslims tend to refer to each other as "brothers".
On August 27, 2021, Trudeau was forced to cancel a campaign rally set for Bolton, Ontario, over security concerns arising from groups of protestors yelling obscenities at Trudeau. There were previous incidents of protesters showing up at his rallies criticizing COVID-19 vaccines and public health measures.
Issues on the campaign trail.
Foreign policy.
Foreign policy debates focused on China and the situation in Afghanistan. For Afghanistan, discussions focused on ways to mitigate the immediate humanitarian crisis facing the country. The group "Canadian Campaign for Afghan Peace" launched an open letter on August 17 calling on political parties to take position of the new situation in Afghanistan.
The campaign took place during the extradition case of Meng Wanzhou, which had exacerbated tensions between Canada and China. O'Toole accused Trudeau of being "weak on China", and promised to scale up Canada's hostility towards the country if elected.
According to Shadwick Martin, the tendency to relegate defence and foreign policy to minor appearances continued in 2021. He argues that the Liberals did not deviate from their government's existing foreign policy, while the Conservatives produced a lengthy list of reforms that one commentator described as "scattered and unfocused". The NDP's propositions were essentially unchanged from 2019.
Climate change.
As in 2019, climate change was a major issue in the campaign. In March 2021, Conservative leader O'Toole announced a carbon pricing plan to replace the current Liberal carbon tax, despite previous Conservative opposition to any form of a carbon tax. There was thus a broad consensus among all represented parties for policies to mitigate climate change, although they differed in the emissions targets, the level of the carbon tax, and the transition path to a clean economy. Only the People's Party opposed all climate change policies and vowed to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a major campaign issue. The Liberal party sought to defend its pandemic response, while trying to tie Erin O'Toole to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. O'Toole always sidestepped questions about his previous support for Kenney's pandemic response by saying he would work with any premier to face the pandemic regardless of their political stripes. During the campaign, Alberta was experiencing its worst wave of the pandemic in terms of hospitalisations.
Meanwhile other parties explained what they would have done differently had they been in a similar situation. The Bloc Québecois criticized the amount of money invested in Federal aid for workers, especially the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). The NDP, on the other hand, criticized the government's "aggressive" crackdown on possibly fraudulent CERB claims, while calling for clawing back wage subsidy payments to companies who fired their workers while received this benefit. The People's Party was the only party opposing vaccine passports, mask mandates and lockdowns.
Gun control.
In September 2021, O'Toole changed his position on gun control. Reverting from his initial promise of repealing Prime Minister Trudeau's May 2020 ban on assault weapons, he changed his stance on the issue, promising that he would not repeal the ban. Political commentators and analysts described O'Toole's leadership as shifting the Conservative Party to the political centre.
Implosion of the Green Party.
The Green Party of Canada experienced a period of infighting beginning in June 2021, when Jenica Atwin, one of its three MPs, crossed the floor to join the Liberal Party over a dispute regarding the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis. Although there were calls for the party leader Annamie Paul to resign, she stayed on as leader through the federal election. She spent the majority of the election campaigning in her chosen riding of Toronto Centre, but failed to win the seat.
Rise of the People's Party.
The campaign was also marked by a rise in support for the People's Party of Canada. Before the election, Mainstreet Research gave the party more than 8 per cent of the vote, and Abacus Data noted particularly high scores among Canadians under the age of 60. Justin Trudeau and Yves-François Blanchet indirectly accused the Conservatives for the rise of the PPC, with Trudeau notably criticizing Erin O'Toole for not requiring his party's candidates to be vaccinated.
Platform evaluations.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer provides a service to all parties for evaluating the financial impact of any of their proposals, but does not release details until the requesting party has done so as well. After the election, the PBO revealed that 130 requests had been received from all parties, of which only 72 were made public. It did release a report outlining various baselines that were used in its costing exercises.
The Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa announced that their analysis of fiscal credibility showed the Liberal party had the best grade, as shown by the following ratings:
Leaders' debates.
In June 2020, the Leaders' Debates Commission released its report reviewing the 2019 election debates and making recommendations for future debates. The report recommended a permanent and publicly funded commission be tasked with organizing two debates for every federal election. It also called for the commission, not the government, to set the criteria for participation in future election debates.
The English-language debate gained notoriety when the moderator posed a question to Blanchet that characterized Quebec's law on secularism as "discriminatory". He challenged her use of that word, and the response was seen by some as a turning point in the Bloc's campaign, which gained in the polls after the debate.
On August 29, Ici Radio-Canada Télé hosted a special broadcast consisting of a series of solo interviews with each leader in turn, with questions posed by Patrice Roy, Céline Galipeau and Anne-Marie Dussault. This format was not attempted by any of the other broadcasters.
Results.
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Full results.
The Liberals maintained their status as largest party in the House of Commons. The results were very close to those of the 2019 federal election.
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Judicial recounts.
In a federal election, a judicial recount is automatically ordered in a riding where the margin of victory is less than 0.1 per cent (one one-thousandth) of the votes cast. In cases where there is a