The Conservative Party of Canada gained ground in vote-rich Ontario but failed to win enough seats to form government in the 45th federal election.
Conservative votes in the battleground region of the 905, an area surrounding Toronto which is key to determining whether a government forms a majority or minority, flipped a handful of districts from red to blue Monday.
As of Tuesday morning, the Conservatives were either elected or leading in 14 of the Greater Toronto Area’s 57 ridings.
Eight of those ridings were previously held by the Liberals, including Newmarket-Aurora, Vaughan-Woodbridge, Markham-Unionville, Brampton West, Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill, Milton East-Halton Hills South, Richmond Hill South. The new riding of York-Durham also went to the Conservatives.
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Outside the Greater Toronto Area, the party picked up seats in southwestern Ontario, including Windsor West, Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore, and Kitchener Centre.
“It looks like the Conservative ground game in Ontario was very effective at converting their level of support, even though it was trailing the Liberals, into seats in battleground Ontario,” Pollster Nik Nanos told CTV News.
Preliminary results show that while the Conservatives were able to make gains outside of Toronto, the country’s most populous city and its 25 seats remained mostly Liberal. Toronto’s York-Centre did shift from red to blue, but the Conservatives could not hold onto their seat in Toronto-St. Paul’s, which they flipped in last year’s byelection.
The NDP did not pick up any seats Monday, despite winning five seats in the last election.
After CTV News declared that Mark Carney’s Liberals would form the next federal government, Ontario political strategist Kory Teneycke said it was a “heart-breaking night for Conservatives across the country,” as he underscored the “strategic error” he believes was made by Pierre Poilievre’s camp.
“I think in many respects, as you reflect on this race, it was largely put in jeopardy before the campaign even began,” said Teneycke, a veteran campaign manager who has led Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford to three consecutive majority governments.
Teneycke made headlines during the 37-day campaign when he accused the federal conservatives of “campaign malpractice” after blowing a nearly two-year lead over the Liberals, suggesting the party failed to meet the moment of former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s departure and U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.
“If you think of this election race as if Pierre Poilievre was fighting against Justin Trudeau and you kept everything else the same, we’d be having a Conservative majority tonight, I believe,” he said.
