MANITOULIN—Most people didn’t feel the ground shift under their feet when Canada’s federal map was quietly redrawn in 2022. It wasn’t until spring arrived — and election signs began sprouting like stubborn weeds along Island highways and main streets — that the new reality took hold: the landscape had changed, and with it, the stakes.
The new Sudbury East–Manitoulin–Nickel Belt riding, stitched together from the remnants of three old constituencies, was born almost overnight. It now sprawls across 32,000 square kilometres, gathering Sudbury west of Highway 144, the full Manitoulin District, and part of Sudbury District near Lake Huron and stretching east to include Sturgeon Falls, while surrendering Nickel Centre and Wanup to a redrawn Sudbury riding. Northern Ontario, already stretched thin, paid a steeper price — losing an entire federal seat in the process.
In the end, both Mr. Poilievere’s Conservatives and Mr. Singh’s NDP were defeated and rendered to opposition benches in the swiftly announced federal election that made Mark Carney the nation’s newly elected Prime Minister.
When the writ dropped on March 23, voters found themselves bound into a patchwork riding: Greater Sudbury to Gogama, Markstay-Warren to Massey, M’Chigeeng to St. Charles. A territory of small towns, villages, and First Nations, each with its own battles — economic strains here, health care gaps there, housing shortages everywhere — and no guarantee that any one political vision could stitch it all together.
After the polls closed in the Nickel Belt riding, Conservative Jim Belanger took an early lead, never looking back and by midnight had been declared the winner, defeating incumbent Liberal candidate Marc Serré and the NDPs Andréane Chénier as well as the PPC and Libertarian candidates.
Mark Carney steered the Liberals to a narrow, hard-fought victory Monday night, in an election overshadowed by a battered economy, rising tariffs, and the looming spectre of US annexation threats under President Donald Trump.
As of 4:15 am Tuesday EDT, the Liberals were elected or leading in 168 of 343 ridings, while Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives were trailing with 144. With 172 seats required for a majority, the country remains suspended in a delicate political balancing act, vulnerable to the crosswinds of both domestic frustration and foreign pressure.
Sudbury East–Manitoulin–Nickel Belt may be new, but it carries echoes of an old Canadian truth: when Ontario leans, the country often follows. Over the past 50 years, in all but one federal election, the party winning the most seats in Ontario has also formed government.
Across Ontario’s 122 ridings—now slightly more with boundary changes—the battle has been fierce. Liberal leader Mark Carney and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre both ran in neighbouring Ottawa-area ridings, while NDP leader Jagmeet Singh returned to Burnaby, B.C., where he made his federal home after serving as an MPP in Brampton.
Mr. Singh lost his seat in Monday’s election which was the worst showing of the NDP ever, losing their party status. He delivered a speech of resignation as party leader. By 4:30 am Pierre Poilievre also lost his own Ottawa area seat.
The national campaign unfolded under the long shadow of US President Donald Trump’s aggressive new tariffs against Canada — and even open musings about annexation. Ontario, with its close economic ties to the US, became a crucible of voter anxiety. Cost of living, economic resilience, and sovereignty itself rose as dominant themes, eclipsing even healthcare and climate change for many voters.
The Greater Toronto Area—the 905—and Northern Ontario’s battleground ridings, including ours, became decisive fields. In the suburbs, Conservatives fought to reclaim ground lost a decade ago. In the North, Liberals fought to hold their threadbare patchwork of support. And the NDP fought simply to survive.
This election—called just weeks after Ontario’s provincial vote delivered Doug Ford another majority—has produced deep voting fatigue. But the stakes have kept turnout high: more than seven million Canadians cast advance ballots, shattering previous records.
In Toronto–St. Paul’s, the tremors of change were felt first. A longtime Liberal stronghold fell to the Conservatives in a 2024 by-election, exposing growing frustrations over housing costs, inflation, and an electorate weary of Liberal promises. The upset helped force Justin Trudeau’s resignation in March, ushering in Mark Carney—an economist with a global pedigree and a technocrat’s instincts—as Liberal leader. With Monday’s election the Liberals regained the Toronto-St. Paul’s riding.
Prime Minister Carney’s arrival, combined with President Trump’s provocations, transformed the race. What had seemed a Conservative coronation in February—with Poilievre leading by over 25 points—collapsed into a dead heat, and eventually a Liberal surge.
As of Monday night, early results from Eastern Canada showed the Liberals leading with 50.1 percent of the vote in the Maritimes, gaining 23 seats, while Conservatives trailed at 43.7 percent, picking up nine seats. The NDP scraped together just 4.3 percent. In Newfoundland’s Long Range Mountains riding, a notable flip to the Conservatives hinted at voter volatility even in traditionally secure regions.
Québec remained Bloc Québécois territory, though Bloc fortunes flickered under pressure from both Liberals and Conservatives hoping to capitalize on nationalist discontent. The Bloc survived with 23 seats, losing 10 seats to the Conservatives and Liberals.
While some Conservative insiders quietly voiced optimism that they held the Liberals to a minority, many were already reckoning with lost ground. Internal chatter swirled about Poilievre’s future: would he survive another stint in opposition if the night ended badly?
Meanwhile, smaller parties cling to relevance. The NDP, diminished to seven seats, may well hope for relevance within the new minority government. The Greens, struggling against a polarized electorate, warned of Canada drifting into an American-style two-party system. Green Party leader Elizabeth May was successful in maintaining her British Colombia seat.
Back on Manitoulin Island and across Sudbury East–Manitoulin–Nickel Belt, the anxieties of the national campaign hit close to home: the cost of groceries, the strain on rural healthcare, the future of jobs tied to vulnerable trade agreements.
In the backdrop, a deeper economic anxiety lingered. US Presidents Trump’s tariffs triggered dangerous tremors in US financial markets, as both stocks and bonds tumbled together — an unusual and ominous pairing. Economists warned that rising bond yields could choke economic growth, just as Canada’s economy teeters between resilience and recession.
Prime Minister Carney, seasoned from steering monetary policy through the 2008 global financial crisis, banked early on strengthening Canada’s financial bulwarks—amassing US treasuries in a defensive move that seemed prescient as the markets roiled.
Yet for all the backroom chess moves and economic forecasts, the story that mattered on Manitoulin, in Massey, in Markstay-Warren, and beyond was simple: a new map, a changed economy, an uncertain future.
On this unsettled spring night, as ballots are counted and hopes hang in the balance, one truth remains clear: Northern Ontario’s voice, though scattered across vast kilometres and varied struggles, remains vital to the future Canada must now decide to build.
