On the surface, Canada’s election on April 28th seemed to preserve the political status quo. As in the last election, in 2021, the ruling Liberal Party will form a minority government. The Conservatives, the main opposition party, slightly narrowed their deficit in Parliament—the Liberals now hold 25 more ridings (as constituencies are called in Canada) than the Conservatives do, down from a 41-seat gap. The Conservatives fared a bit worse in the popular vote, losing it by two percentage points after winning by one in 2021.
Underneath this apparent stasis, however, lies a striking political upheaval. On average, the margin between the two big parties in individual ridings changed by nine percentage points from 2021 to 2025, twice as much as the shift in the average American county between the presidential elections of 2020 and 2024. Some ridings swung by more than 30 points. These yawning gaps added up to modest differences in nationwide results only because for each riding that moved right, another one slid leftwards by a similar amount.
It’s now almost impossible to tell the Economist from the Guardian.
