Justin Trudeau has secured a third election victory, but his decision to call a snap election was criticised by political opponents – and even allies – after the Canadian prime minister failed once again to win a parliamentary majority.
This is Mr Trudeau’s third federal election win, but his critics say the poll was a waste of time.
The Liberals are projected to win 158 seats, short of the 170 seats needed for the majority Mr Trudeau was seeking with his early election call.
The Conservatives have held onto their main opposition status and are expected to win about 122 seats.
“There are still votes to be counted but what we’ve seen tonight is millions of Canadians have chosen a progressive plan,” Mr Trudeau told supporters in Montreal in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
As of Tuesday morning, the Liberals had won or were leading in 158 seats – short of the 170 needed for a majority. Erin O’Toole’s opposition Conservatives won 119, a result that largely mirrored the outcome of the 2019 election.
“It looks like nobody wanted an election and no one got what they wanted,” said the Toronto Star political columnist Chantal Hébert as results came in.
The snap election call, sending Canadians to the polls for the second time in two years, was widely seen as a bid by Mr Trudeau to secure a majority government and he struggled to explain why a campaign was necessary. Conservative leader Erin O’Toole suggested it was a waste of time and money.
“Canadians sent him back with another minority at a cost of $600m and deeper divisions in our great country”, he told reporters.
Mr Trudeau maintained that the election gave the incoming government a clear mandate in moving forward.
But over the course of the campaign, he struggled to convince voters of the need for an election, which also coincided with rising Covid-19 case loads due to the Delta variant.
Separately he was also heckled by anti-vaccine protesters on the campaign trail, with some shouting they would refuse the Covid jab.
