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In Ontario, home to more than one-third of the ridings in the country, the Liberals were leading or elected in about 67 seats in the province, and the Conservatives were leading and elected in 55 seats, with a few ridings still yet to be declared early Tuesday morning.

Both parties appeared set to make gains in Ontario, including the Liberals picking up Peterborough and Toronto-St. Paul’s from the Conservatives, and the Tories winning York Centre over the incumbent Liberal.

The NDP’s dismal performance nationally, capturing only about five per cent of the popular vote, translated to no seats in Ontario, despite them winning five in the last election. Even in the reliably New Democrat ridings of Hamilton Centre and Windsor West, the incumbents trailed in third.

Experts say the NDP support has mostly gone to benefit the Liberals. University of Western Ontario political science professor Cameron Anderson said that may be because some of those ridings are in southern and southwestern Ontario, areas dependent on manufacturing.

“It is possible that in those ridings, the narrative, the arguments, the ideas around a response to (U.S. President Donald) Trump and to tariffs, overwhelmed what might otherwise have been sort of the normal levels of support for a party like the NDP in those ridings,” he said. 

Jared Walker, an NDP strategist and former aide to Jagmeet Singh, who announced Monday night he is stepping down as the party’s leader, said a lot of people seemed to have parked their vote with the Liberals due to the threat Trump poses to Canada’s economy.

“If we compare the showing for the NDP provincially versus federally, you can see that folks who, literally a month ago, elected quite a few NDP MPPs ... decided this time that they were going to vote Liberal to make sure that they could deny Pierre Poilievre a government,” he said.

The NDP defeats hit hard in the open race for Taiaiako’n-Parkdale-High Park. The party pinned its hopes on the area’s popular two-term member of provincial parliament in what was considered their best shot at flipping a º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøriding. Bhutila Karpoche lost her contest, as did the two other former Ontario NDP caucus members who left Queen’s Park to run federally.

Jamie Ellerton, principal of strategic communications firm Conaptus and a former Conservative staffer, said the results show Ontarians are divided about what they in terms of political leadership right now.

“I think when you look at what the Liberals and Conservatives have done, I have no doubt there’s pros and cons for both, but definitely the collapse of the NDP has allowed the Liberals to win the plurality of seats in Ontario,” he said.

“The GTA, obviously, is where the greatest bulk of the seats are. So as goes the GTA, so goes the government. And the fact that the GTA is quite split tonight, I think kind of shows you how divided the province is as kind of a bellwether.”

Several of the seats the Conservatives were set to gain were in the surrounding regions just outside Toronto, with the Tories taking ridings such as Vaughan-Woodbridge and Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill from the Liberals.

Nearby, deputy Conservative leader Melissa Lantsman was re-elected in her riding of Thornhill and thanked her campaign team and volunteers while admitting disappointment in the overall election result.

“Unfortunately, it seems that Canadians have chosen a very different version of the future than the one I would have liked to see,” she said.

“This is a time of great uncertainty and turmoil, but our new prime minister deserves a congratulations, our prayers, and most importantly, in a democracy, a very, very strong opposition.”

Chrystia Freeland, who was deputy prime minister under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, remarked that just a few months ago another Liberal government seemed inconceivable to many.

Her resignation from Trudeau’s cabinet was widely seen as a major factor in Trudeau’s decision to announce his own departure, and though at that point polls had shown the Liberals in a steady decline, the party saw a sharp uptick soon after.

“Just to help us all be really happy and appreciate what a great night tonight is, I want us all to think back to December,” Freeland said while celebrating her re-election victory in her riding of University-Rosedale. 

“Think about all those smart pundits who were writing off the Liberal party, everyone who said, ‘Wow, those Liberals, they’ll be lucky to even retain official party status.’ Look at where we are now.”

While the Liberals were largely able to retain their swath of red across the Greater º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøArea, the Conservatives won several of those important seats.

Those ridings, particularly in the Peel Region west of Toronto, are where elections are won and lost, said Jonathan Malloy, a political science professor at Carleton University.

“This is a fairly typical minority result,” he said. 

“The Liberals did not win a majority, the Conservatives did not win a majority either, and so we’re seeing this kind of mix, in Mississauga, particularly in Brampton. ... I’ve always said Mississauga really is kind of the battleground of Ontario in federal politics. Mississauga tends to reflect the nation, and that’s what we’re seeing with these results here.”

— With files from Sharif Hassan in Thornhill, Ont., and Liam Casey and Jordan Omstead in Toronto.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 28, 2025.