2015 Canadian federal election
Canadian general election

The 2015 Canadian federal election was held on October 19, 2015, to elect the 338 members of the House of Commons of the 42nd Parliament of Canada. In accordance with the maximum four-year term under a 2007 amendment to the Canada Elections Act, the writs of election for the 2015 election were issued by Governor General David Johnston on August 2. At 11 weeks, the ensuing campaign was one of the longest in Canadian history: It was also the first time since 1979 that a prime minister attempted to remain in office into a fourth consecutive Parliament and the first time since 1980 that someone attempted to win a fourth term of any kind as prime minister. This is also the most recent election in which a majority government was formed.
The Liberal Party won 184 seats, forming a majority government with its leader Justin Trudeau becoming prime minister. Trudeau and the rest of his cabinet were sworn in on November 4, 2015. The Conservative Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper, won 99 seats, becoming the Official Opposition after nearly a decade on the government benches. The New Democratic Party, led by Tom Mulcair, won 44 seats, becoming the third-largest party in the House of Commons, after having formed the Official Opposition following the 2011 election. The Bloc Québécois won 10 seats, the Green Party won 1 seat, and Strength in Democracy lost all its seats.
The Liberal Party's increase of 148 seats from the previous election was the largest-ever numerical increase by a party in a Canadian election.
“2015 Canadian federal election” enters the record as canadian general election. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Canadian, federal and election can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3586271. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2007, 1979 and 1980.
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This entry incorporates text from “2015 Canadian federal election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.