Canada election: Carney and Trump speak by phone after Liberals hold onto power

Nearly 24 hours after the first polls in the country closed, CBC’s Decision Desk is making its final results call from the very last riding.

Conservative Marc Dalton is projected to win with 47 per cent of the vote in B.C. riding Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge over the Liberals' Angie Rowel, who came in second with 45 per cent.

In his speech last night, Poilievre highlighted Conservative wins from the election, then strongly implied he'd stay on as leader of the party.

But losing his seat in the House of Commons has raised questions about whether he'd change his mind — or whether the party would push him out.

Kate Harrison, a conservative panellist on Power & Politics and the vice chair of PR company Summa Strategies, said it’s “not the right call” for the Conservatives to hold a leadership race in the midst of a Liberal minority government.

Though Poilievre losing his seat has cast a "dark, stormy cloud," the Conservatives this election grew their proportion of the popular vote, and made inroads in Ontario with 44 per cent of the vote there.

Poilievre helped create "the new Conservative voting coalition in this country," which includes blue-collar workers and young people, Harrison said.

"I think he's right to stay at the helm and I suspect the caucus will be unified around that.”

The Liberals’ Bruce Fanjoy got more than 50 per cent of the vote in the Ottawa-area riding of Carleton — in which he was up against none other than Poilievre.

Poilievre had held the riding for more than 20 years, winning seven consecutive elections.

Speaking to Power & Politics host David Cochrane, Fanjoy said he worked in the riding for two years, "knocked on thousands of doors, [and] had thousands and thousands of conversations" with constituents there.

"And I got a good sense as to the mood of the riding," Fanjoy said. "In that time, Pierre was largely absent … and people felt taken for granted."

Poilievre is known to have been campaigning tirelessly across the country since he won the Conservative leadership in 2022.

Some prominent Conservatives MPs have been talking about the next election last night and again today. Scott Aitchison, who represents Ontario’s Parry-Sound Muskoka, just said on CBC’s Power & Politics he doesn’t think another Liberal minority will last.

"It'd be wishful thinking if I said I hope it doesn't last much longer than two months, but I don't know how long it will last. Minority parliaments don't generally last that long … I think history has taught us we should be ready to go very quickly,” said Aitchison, who once ran for party leadership.

“I think that in a couple years, you could see that Pierre Poilievre is the next prime minister of Canada.”

Former party leader Andrew Scheer said something similar after he was re-elected in Saskatchewan’s Regina Qu’Appelle riding last night.

“There’s a very good chance we’re going to be doing this again very shortly,” he said, per Adam Hunter, our colleague in Regina.

Carney was put on the spot during the campaign last week when Radio-Canada revealed Trump had in fact mentioned his 51st state idea during their March 28 phone call.

The prime minister had said after the call that Trump respected Canadian sovereignty, leading many to assume the president hadn't threatened to annex Canada in that conversation.

Carney defended his depiction of the call, saying Trump had addressed him as an equal and hadn't made jokes about him being a state "governor" as he'd done with former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

During that call, Trump and Carney made plans for a renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade (CUSMA) between the prime minister — whoever it would happen to be after the election — and the president.

A statement from the prime minister’s office said the U.S. president congratulated Carney and that the two leaders agreed they look forward to working together as “independent, sovereign nations.”

That contradicts a statement the White House issued earlier today. Spokesperson Anna Kelly said the election result "does not affect President Trump's plan to make Canada America's cherished 51st state.”

The Canadian statement said the two leaders agreed to meet in person “in the near future.”

After auto tariffs were a central part of the Canadian federal election campaign, Trump is signing an executive order today to soften the blow of some of his 25 per cent tariffs on autos and auto parts, according to Reuters.

The changes will provide auto companies with credits for up to 15 per cent of the value of vehicles assembled domestically. These could be applied against the value of imported parts, allowing time to bring supply chains back home, a senior administration official said.

Autos and parts subject to those tariffs would no longer be subject to Trump's other tariffs, including 25 per cent duties on Canadian and Mexican goods (which are on, but don't apply to Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement-compliant goods), 25 per cent levies on steel and aluminum, as well as 10 per cent duties applied to most other countries.

The change also extends a duty-free exemption for North American parts that comply with the U.S. rules of origin.

Heather McPherson may be hot on the heels of victory, but she's still having a really rough day.

The NDP candidate held onto her seat in Edmonton Strathcona, making her the lone New Democrat elected in Alberta. But she says her success feels bittersweet as her party crumbles around her.

"It's very hard today," McPherson told host As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “I'm grieving the loss of some really remarkable members of Parliament."

McPherson blamed her party’s losses on strategic voting, the first-past-the-post electoral system, and an election she says centred on fear of U.S. President Donald Trump. She issued dire warnings about the country sliding towards an "American-style two-party system" that breeds division.

“In the long run, I think that New Democrats will come back. We always do. We'll keep fighting,” she said. “You don't become a New Democrat in Alberta because you wanted the easy way.”

Asked if she would seek her party’s leadership when Singh steps down, she said it’s “too early to tell.”

“I think that history will remember Jagmeet Singh as bringing forward the biggest expansion of our health-care system in a generation," she said, referring to him as her mentor. "I am so proud of what he was able to achieve."

Elections Canada is estimating the voter turnout in this election to be over 67 per cent of the eligible voter population. At 19.2 million ballots cast, that number is the best it's been since 2015.

There were also a record number of advance polls, at 7.3 million, as we've previously reported.

According to The Canadian Press, the record for voter turnout in Canada was set in March 1958, when 79.4 per cent of eligible electors — 7,357,139 people — voted.

The last federal election, in 2021, saw 62.6 per cent of eligible voters head to the polls.

With votes still being counted, voter turnout still has some room to climb.

We've got two automatic judicial recounts so far.

The result in Terra Nova-The Peninsulas in Newfoundland and Labrador has just been called with a win for Liberal candidate Anthony Germain, who won by just 12 votes.

As Jenna said, Terrebonne in Quebec — won by 24-year-old Liberal Tatiana Auguste by 35 votes — will also be recounted.

Automatic recounts occur when the vote difference between top candidates is 0.1 per cent or less.