2011 Canadian Federal Election
Canada held a snap parliamentary election on May 2, 2011. All 308 seats in the House of Commons were up for election, and a party needed at least 155 seats to secure a majority government.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority government, first elected in 2008, lost a no-confidence motion on March 25, 2011. This loss effectively triggered a new election a year and a half before the regularly scheduled date in October 2012.
Harper's Conservatives gained 23 seats in the election, securing a majority government for the first (and, as of the 2025 election, only) time in the modern Conservative Party's existence.
Boosted by a collapse in support for the Liberal Party and Bloc Québécois, the New Democratic Party flipped 66 seats to surge into second place and form opposition for the first time in Canadian history. The NDP's support largely came at the Bloc's expense in Quebec, as well as by flipping numerous Liberal ridings in downtown city cores across the country.
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff lost his own seat in the election and resigned leadership of his party. NDP leader Jack Layton succumbed to cancer just three months after the election.
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