What's at stake for Ontario in today's federal election

In every federal election but one over the past 50 years, the party taking the most seats in Ontario has also formed government. Tonight Canadians will learn whether that trend continues.

There are 122 seats up for grabs in Ontario, more than one-third of all ridings in Canada. In the 2021 election, the province elected 78 Liberals, 37 Conservatives, five New Democrats and one Green. Ontario has since gained an extra seat in the redistribution of electoral boundaries. 

Polls are open Monday from 9:30 a.m. ET to 9:30 p.m. ET across the province (including in the northwestern corner of Ontario that's in the Central time zone.) 

The five-week campaign frequently saw the major party leaders in Ontario, particularly the 905 and some battleground ridings in southwestern and northern Ontario.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre have their own names on the ballot in two neighbouring Ontario ridings, the Ottawa-area seats of Nepean and Carleton respectively.

While NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is running in a riding in Burnaby, B.C., he grew up in Windsor and served in the Ontario Legislature as a New Democrat MPP representing Brampton. 

The issues that have dominated the campaign nationally — including the cost of living, the economy and U.S. President Donald Trump's economic and political threats against Canada — also resonated with voters in Ontario. 

The federal campaign kicked off less than a month after the provincial election in which Premier Doug Ford led his Progressive Conservatives to their third straight majority.

Ford's campaign focused almost exclusively on Trump and tariffs, with the PC leader pitching himself as the best leader to protect Ontario against the threats. 

As Liberal leader in the national campaign, Carney mimicked much of Ford's strategy, even holding identical-looking campaign events in Windsor, with the Ambassador Bridge to the U.S. as a backdrop.

While Ford has professed that he will work with whoever forms government, there has been far greater tension between his team and the Conservative leader than with the Liberal leader. 

Ford's campaign director Kory Teneycke, who previously advised former prime minister Stephen Harper, openly criticized the Poilievre campaign for not pivoting its message to Trump and tariffs.

Ford backed Teneycke, telling reporters on April 14, "if Kory was running that campaign, I don't think Mr. Poilievre would be in the position he's in right now." 

The CBC Poll Tracker suggests the Liberals were polling ahead of the Conservatives in Ontario throughout the campaign, although the gap narrowed in the final week. 

While Ford did not publicly endorse any leader in the campaign, he met Carney for breakfast in early March, just a few days after his win, at the Liberal party's leadership convention.

Ford told reporters that a mid-March phone call with Poilievre was the first time he'd ever spoken with the Conservative leader. Poilievre won the party's leadership in September 2022.

Poilievre held several large rallies in Ontario during the campaign, including events in Stoney Creek, Brampton and Windsor, which drew big crowds. He released his party's costed platform in Vaughan. 

He chose the fast-growing GTA community of Milton as the site to make a key platform announcement on housing. 

For the New Democrats, Singh was in Ontario on six of the first seven days of the campaign. He returned to the province several times, including for the release of a platform for northern Ontario, a region where the party won two seats in the 2021 election. 

In the final days of the campaign, Singh did a swing through southern Ontario that included stops in Hamilton, London and Windsor, three cities where NDP incumbents are seeking re-election.

Throughout the campaign, CBC journalists asked voters across Canada what matters to them in the election.

We heard from voters in a burger joint in Oshawa, at the famous St. Jacobs farmers' market in Waterloo region, on the campus of Queen's University in Kingston, at a truck stop off the 401 in eastern Ontario and at a late-season Ottawa Senators game. 

Elsewhere in Ontario, voters weighed in with their thoughts in such places as Windsor, Chatham-Kent-Leamington, London,  Mississauga and Manitoulin Island.

Voters in the Ontario ridings with some of the lowest turnouts last election (King—Vaughan and Markham—Unionville) shared their concerns, as did voters in a riding with one of the highest turnouts (Niagara West).  

Two of CBC's flagship programs went on the road to hear from voters and made stops in Ontario: Adrienne Arsenault sat down with people in Brampton for The National, while Matt Galloway chatted with voters from across the 905 for The Current.