so Canada’s federal election just got bumped up to April 28th, 2025, and you all know what that means. it means yall have to see me make another long-winded post about it.
Canada’s parliament is currently [as of March 2025] occupied by five political parties. There are more than just these five, but these ones are considered the main players in Canadian Politics.
I’ve seen a few comments floating around treating former Prime Minister Trudeau’s tag-out with replacement Prime Minister Carney like it was a federal election [it was not] and that it was somehow illegal [it was perfectly legal]. Being America’s neighbor has even Canadians confused as to how our own election system operates, so here are the cliff notes:
◦ You are eligible to vote in Canada if you are a Canadian citizen, are 18 years or older, and can prove your identity and address.
◦ Federal elections do not utilize automatic ballot-counting machines. If someone’s going off about ballot-hacking or interference, they likely haven’t voted in a Canadian federal election. From casting ballots to counting, Canadian voting is largely analog. All golf pencils and paper.
◦ Canada does not vote to elect the Prime Minister specifically. There are 343 Ridings [Electoral Districts] across Canada. These correspond with the 343 seats in the House of Commons:
ALT
ALT
Each riding elects a member of Parliament to represent them in the House of Commons. Each member of Parliament is typically affiliated with a political party, but they can be independent. The party that wins the most seats in the House becomes the prevailing government and that party’s leader becomes Prime Minister.
◦ This is not a celebrity contest. Election ballots vary from riding to riding and list the names of the candidates running for Parliament within each individual district. Party leader names only appear if they happen to be the representative for your particular riding. Voters can find out their riding’s candidates using the Elections Canada website.
While Canadian elections don’t have nearly the same sensationalism as the States, these basics should still give you the knowledge to recognize when someone [or a bot] is trying to manufacture social media outrage or otherwise spew some bullshit.
So I’m going to close this all off with this:
Elections are not Team Sports
In the social media era, it can be alarmingly easy to get swept up in hype and spectacle. Canada operates on a multi-party system, sure, but you still need to pay attention and read into to the policies and guarantees each party is dangling in front of you.
Don’t just leave it to election day vibes. You need to think critically about who you want writing the legislation, and that also means equipping yourself with the awareness to vote strategically.
If you live in a riding that’s detrimentally attached to a party whose policies conflict with human rights and values, you may need to place your vote in the candidate whose party has the best chance to oust them - even if that party isn’t the one you’d personally prefer to vote for.