Canadians will vote on April 28 in an election that will determine which party will lead its government: the Liberal Party, which is currently in power under Mark Carney, its new leader and Justin Trudeau’s successor as prime minister, or the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, who hope to return to power after nearly a decade in the opposition.
Here’s what to expect on voting day and after the results are known.
Who votes and what’s on the ballot?
All Canadian citizens, including prisoners and people who live outside the country, are eligible to vote with one exception. The chief electoral officer, the nonpartisan official assigned by Parliament to run the electoral system, cannot cast a ballot during his or her 10-year tenure.
By tradition, the governor general, who holds King Charles’ powers and responsibilities as Canada’s head of state, abstains from voting to protect the office’s political neutrality.
Voters have a single task: to select their local member in the House of Commons, the elected assembly of Canada’s Parliament. The next Parliament will have 342 members, an increase of four since the last election because of population growth.
Canada uses a “first past the post” system, in which the candidate with the most votes wins the seat, even if that total is not a majority of the ballots cast.
There is no voting on referendums or for other offices.
How do I vote?
Most Canadians have received a card in the mail indicating their polling place and locations for four days of advanced voting, which begin on Friday. Elections Canada, a nonpartisan agency that administers Canada’s election, has an online service for people whose cards have errors or who have not received a card.
While having a card makes voting easier, it is not required.
People who live outside of Canada or who won’t be in their communities either on Election Day or any of the advance voting days have until Tuesday to apply for a mail-in ballot, which can also be handed in at any election office.
Any ballots that reach Elections Canada in Ottawa after 6 p.m. Eastern time on voting day will not be counted.
Who elects the prime minister?
No one directly. In general, the party that emerges with at least a plurality of seats in the House of Commons will ask the governor general to allow it to form the government. The leader of the party that forms the government becomes prime minister, and he or she then chooses a cabinet, usually from the party’s members in the House of Commons.
In addition to the Liberals and Conservatives, only the New Democratic Party runs candidates in most federal electoral districts across the country. But it has never formed a federal government, and polls show that support for the N.D.P. has sunk to the lowest level since 2000.
The prime minister is not required to be a member of Parliament. Mr. Carney, a former central banker, took the position after Liberal Party members elected him as their leader last month. He is now running in his first election, to represent a middle-class suburb of Ottawa rather than the affluent neighborhood where he, along with many diplomats, lives.
When are the results known?
Canada has six time zones, but poll closing times are staggered so that most of them shut at 9:30 p.m. Eastern time regardless of where they are. The Westernmost province British Columbia closes half an hour later, at 10 p.m. Eastern time. The results of the election will, most likely, be known on the evening of April 28.
Canada uses paper ballots that are counted by hand at every polling station, by employees of Elections Canada. Candidates are allowed to appoint representatives to oversee the counting. No counting machines are used.
The polling station results are then reported upward to Elections Canada’s headquarters in Ottawa, which releases them online, immediately.
Because the ballot boxes are not moved to central counting locations, the first results usually begin trickling in soon after the polls close. The full count usually extends until well after the broad result of the election has become clear.
Special ballots used for people voting by mail, prisoners, Canadians outside of the country and military members are generally not counted until after voting day to allow officials to confirm they did not vote in person.
What if no party gets a majority of seats?
Canada does not have a history of European-style coalition governments, in which several political parties join together to form a cabinet and govern. The one exception was during World War I, when the Conservatives and some of the Liberals in the House of Commons, along with independent members, formed a coalition to deal with growing political divisions over conscription.
Minority governments formed by the party that wins the most seats, however, are common. They usually rely on the informal support of other parties to pass legislation. But such governments live in constant peril of being brought down by losing a confidence vote in the House of Commons or being defeated on a bill that involves taxes or spending money.
In 1979, a Progressive Conservative government only lasted 66 days before being defeated, forcing another election.
The New Democrats formally agreed to support Mr. Trudeau after the 2021 election, in exchange for the Liberal Party adopting some of its policy measures. But the New Democrats were never part of Mr. Trudeau’s government.
Ian Austen reports on Canada for The Times based in Ottawa. He covers politics, culture and the people of Canada and has reported on the country for two decades. He can be reached at [email protected].
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