Elections Canada

How a Canadian Federal Election Actually Works: From the Writ to the Results.

A Canadian federal election fills the seats of the House of Commons — 343 of them as of the 2023 redistribution. Each seat represents a riding (electoral district), and voters in each riding choose among local candidates. The candidate with the most votes in a riding wins it outright; this is first-past-the-post (single-member plurality), and a winner needs only more votes than any rival, not a majority. Canadians do not directly vote for the Prime Minister or the government; the party (or coalition) that can command the confidence of the House — usually the one with the most seats — forms government, and its leader becomes Prime Minister. Elections are triggered by the Governor General dissolving Parliament on the Prime Minister's advice, subject to the fixed-election-date law (a default date that does not prevent an earlier call). The independent, non-partisan agency Elections Canada, led by the Chief Electoral Officer (an officer of Parliament), administers the vote. Because first-past-the-post translates votes to seats riding-by-riding, the national seat share routinely diverges from the national vote share — a party can win the most seats without the most votes, and small vote swings can produce large seat swings.