While it was clear which party would be forming government on election night, the exact party standing in the House of Commons is currently still being determined more than two weeks later.
Two ridings have seen their seats flip to the Liberals following judicial recounts, and two other ridings are still being recounted. The Liberals have 170 seats at this time, two short of a majority. The Conservatives have 143 seats, the Bloc has 22, the New Democrats have seven, and the Green Party has one.
A judicial recount, which is conducted by a judge, must take place if the margin of victory for a candidate is less than 0.1 percent of the valid votes cast. For example, if 40,000 votes were cast, a judicial recount would be required if there is a difference of less than 40 between the number of votes for the first candidate and that for the second candidate.
Here’s an overview of these races.
Liberals Win in Milton East-Halton Hills South After Recount
One of the ridings that required a judicial recount was Milton East-Halton Hills South in Southern Ontario. Conservative candidate Parm Gill was initially declared the winner in the April 28 election. However, the riding subsequently flipped to Liberal candidate Kristina Tesser Derksen.Elections Canada ordered a judicial recount after the standard process of validating the unofficial results found that Tesser Derksen actually had 29 more votes than Gill, a difference of less than 0.1 percent of the valid votes cast. Following the recount, Tesser Derksen’s margin of victory narrowed from 29 to 21 votes.
In a May 16 statement shortly after midnight, Tesser Derksen said she found out just before midnight that she had officially won the race.
Tesser Derksen, a town councillor for the town of Milton since 2018, had unsuccessfully run in the 2025 Ontario provincial election in the riding of Milton two months earlier.
Gill had previously served as MP for Brampton-Springdale from 2011 to 2015 and then as MPP for the provincial riding of Milton from 2018 to 2024.
Terrebonne Race Flips to Liberals Following Recount
The Quebec riding of Terrebonne was another riding that required a judicial recount. The Bloc Québécois said it will be challenging the results after the recount saw the riding flip to the Liberals by just one vote, despite discovery of a mail-in vote uncounted due to a postal code error by Elections Canada, where the voter later told media that she had voted for the Bloc.Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste had initially been declared the winner by 35 votes on April 28, but the subsequent vote validation process determined on May 1 that incumbent Bloc MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné had won re-election, beating Auguste by 44 votes. Elections Canada announced May 7 that a judicial recount would be held. Following the recount, it was confirmed on May 10 that Liberal candidate Auguste had indeed won the riding, by a single vote.
Terrebonne resident Emmanuelle Bossé then revealed to media that she had mailed in her vote supporting the Bloc weeks before the April 28 election, but that it was returned to her on May 2 because Elections Canada had placed an incorrect return address on the envelope.
Elections Canada has confirmed that the envelope was wrongly returned due to an error on its part. It also said five of the 115 special ballots were received late, “even though the return envelope contained an error in the postal code.”
While Elections Canada said the results of this race are final, the Bloc Québécois says it will undertake legal proceedings to ask the courts for a re-run of the election.
Liberals Lead in Newfoundland Riding as Recount Continues
A judicial recount is currently taking place for the newly redrawn Newfoundland and Labrador riding of Terra Nova-The Peninsulas.The initial tally saw Liberal candidate Anthony Germain winning the riding with just 12 votes more than Conservative candidate Jonathan Rowe. The close margin triggered a judicial recount, which is expected to wrap up by the end of the long weekend.
Germain is a former teacher and CBC broadcaster. When it was announced that he had defeated Rowe by just 12 votes on April 29, it was at the time the closest margin of victory of any riding race in Canada.
Churence Rogers, the Liberal incumbent for the riding previously known as Bonavista-Burin-Trinity, announced in December 2024 that he would not be seeking re-election.
Tories Lead Ontario Riding, Recount Begins
Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore in Ontario is another riding where a judicial recount is taking place. Here, Conservative candidate Kathy Borrelli appears to have beaten Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk by 233 votes.Kusmierczyk, who has been the MP for the riding since 2019, said in a social media post on May 9 that a judicial recount had been approved for the riding.
“I want to be clear, I will absolutely and unequivocally accept the results of this Judicial Recount,” Kusmierczyk wrote.
Borrelli’s lead over Kusmierczyk was reduced from 233 to 77 following the initial Elections Canada validation count, which was 7 votes shy of an automatic recount. However, Kusmierczyk told reporters on May 9 that his team of volunteers had identified that some ballots had been mistakenly rejected, and they presented their evidence to Justice Ross Macfarlane to request a recount.
“Justice Macfarlane today confirmed that we do need to have a second look at those ballots, that there is enough evidence to require that,” Kusmierczyk told reporters.
The judicial recount is still ongoing and the final results are expected to be known within a few days.
Other Close Races With No Recounts
The federal election saw four other close races where the margin of victory was larger than the 0.1 percent threshold, meaning no recount was triggered.In the B.C. riding of Vancouver-Kingsway, NDP incumbent Don Davies won re-election by 303 votes, a 0.6 percent margin, which was not enough to trigger a judicial recount. Davies, who has been the MP for that riding since 2008, went on to become interim leader of his party after NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh resigned following the loss of his own seat.
The Ontario riding of Kitchener Centre was flipped by just 375 votes, with Conservative Kelly DeRidder beating out Green Party incumbent Mike Morrice. It was a tight three-way race, with DeRidder receiving 20,234 votes, Morrice obtaining 19,859 votes, and Liberal candidate Brian Adeba getting 17,292 votes.
In the neighbouring riding of Kitchener-Conestoga, Liberal candidate Tim Louis won by a margin of just 522 votes against Conservative candidate Doug Treleaven. The two previous federal races were also close for Louis—he was elected in 2019 with a 365-vote margin, and re-elected in 2021 with a 577-vote margin.
The Quebec riding of Shefford saw Bloc MP Andréanne Larouche hold her seat by a 571-vote margin, defeating Liberal candidate Félix Dionne. Larouche has been an MP since 2019.
