"Thank you, Canada," Trudeau, who won his third term as PM, wrote on Twitter. The Leftist leader said he was grateful to the Canadians "for putting your trust in the Liberal team, for choosing a brighter future."

In his speech before a small group of supporters in Montreal, Trudeau claimed the results of the election meant he now had a "clear mandate to get Canada through this pandemic."

...

The prime minister also insisted that Canadians didn't want to hear about the election anymore. He himself called the vote two years earlier than scheduled in an apparent attempt to strengthen his position by capitalizing on the government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which included a large-scale vaccination drive and financial support for businesses and individuals affected by the curbs.

But the plan didn't fully work out as the tight race for the parliament delivered results that were almost identical to the 2019 vote. As a consequence, Trudeau, who had been in power since 2015, would still require support from other parties to promote his policies.

Shortly before Trudeau's speech, the leader of Canada's main opposition Conservative Party, Erin O'Toole, conceded defeat in the election. He told his supporters outside Toronto that he had already called the PM and congratulated him on the outcome.

However, O'Toole pointed out that "Canadians did not give Mr. Trudeau the majority mandate he wanted."

The Conservative Party, which opposes the liberal push for vaccine mandates and suggests that the coronavirus should be tackled through voluntary inoculations and rapid testing, has been in the lead in 122 electoral districts.

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The People's Party of Canada, which grew in popularity over the campaign, riding a wave of protests against vaccine and lockdown policies, picked up tens of thousands of votes nationally in Monday's federal election.

Over the course of the campaign, PPC Leader Maxime Bernier has been traversing the country, preaching to crowds of people opposed to COVID-19 public-health measures, those who are vaccine skeptics or dislike vaccine passports, as well as reaching those who came to his party for its other policies, such as a vow to cut immigration levels in half.

"More and more Canadians are coming on our side because of tyranny, medical tyranny, and the vaccine passport, that will be imposed on us in every province," Bernier told a crowd in Edmonton recently.

The pitch seemed to be working, harnessing this discontent and moving Bernier from also ran to a man who might just have had the potential to split the vote on the political right.

Erin O'Toole, the Conservative party leader, cautioned conservatives against voting for the People's Party, saying a vote for Bernier's party would help Justin Trudeau's Liberals.

"Justin Trudeau wants you to split the vote by voting PPC," O'Toole said over the weekend.

Back in 2019, Bernier's nascent party failed to win a single seat and managed only 1.6 per cent of the popular vote; Bernier, who had represented the Quebec riding of Beauce since 2006, failed to win his own seat, which was taken by Conservative Richard Lehoux.

This time around, bolstered by waves of dissatisfaction over the handling of the pandemic, Bernier, in the days leading up to the election, looked poised to receive somewhere around six per cent of the popular vote, according to the polling aggregator 338Canada, around double what the Green Party was projected to receive, and hot on the heels of the Bloc Québécois.

When polls first closed in Atlantic Canada, the PPC received 4.6 per cent of the popular vote, according to early Elections Canada data. As further polls opened across the country, they held steady around that number.

"I'm feeling good," said Bernier to a CBC reporter shortly after all polls closed. "Four, five, six per cent that's big for us in Atlantic Canada ... so I believe tonight will be a good night for us."

Bernier has said that after this election, his party was here to stay. Still, on Monday night Bernier was projected to lose his riding.

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