The 2025 federal election has officially kicked off, with ballots on the North Shore filling up and lawn signs getting pounded in. Canadians go to the polls to elect a new government on April 28.
Who is running on the North Shore?
In North Vancouver-Capilano (formerly just known as North Vancouver), three-term Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson is seeking re-election. Challenging Wilkinson for the seat is Conservative Stephen Curran, the NDP’s Tammy Bentz, the Green Party’s Andrew Robinson and the People’s Party of Canada’s Seyed Ehsan Arjmand Boroujen.
In 2021, the Liberals held the North Vancouver riding with 44.7 per cent of the vote, beating the Conservatives’ 29.4, the NDP’s 19.1 and the Greens’ 4.27.
West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, one of the largest and most disparate ridings in the region, will see Liberal incumbent Patrick Weiler run for a third term, facing challenges from the Conservatives’ Keith Roy, the NDP’s Jäger Rosenberg, the Greens’ Lauren Greenlaw and the People Party’s Peyman Askari.
This riding was the closest of the North Shore’s races in 2021, with Weiler finishing just 3.9 percentage points (33.9 per cent) ahead of former Conservative MP Jonathan Weston (30 per cent.) The NDP, Green Party and People’s Party finished with 25.6, 6.5 and 3.6 per cent, respectively.
And in Burnaby North-Seymour, Liberal incumbent Terry Beech is running for a fourth straight win, with Conservative Mauro Francis, the NDP’s Michael Charrois, the Green Party’s Bryan White and the People’s Party’s Jesse Fulton also on the ballot.
The riding, which spans Burrard Inlet, has only ever been held by the Liberals since its creation in 2015. Beech won in 2021 with 39.5 per cent of the popular vote, while NDP came second with 29.1 per cent. The Conservatives finished at 25.5 per cent while the Greens and People’s Party were limited to 3.1 and 2.8 per cent.
What do the polls say?
Already, one of the must stunning things about the election has been the rapid shift in the polls, which until very recently, indicated a Conservative landslide was coming, said UBC political science Professor Gerald Baier.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs and insistence that Canada become the 51st state has provided a shock to the system and a newfound patriotism that seems to be coalescing around Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals.
“If you think of the last year or two with some double-digit leads for the Conservatives, seemingly vaporizing overnight…. It’s almost like a Liberal fantasy that this would work out this way, but it has,” he said.
If those national trends in polling are reflected in the voting intentions of residents in key provinces – particularly Quebec – it could have a major influence on who forms government, he said.
“If there’s a 10-point swing from the Bloc to Liberals, that’s a huge difference for Liberal fortunes nationally,” he said. “If there’s a party that Quebecers are going to trust to be kind of anti-Trump, it’s going to be the Liberals.”
But Baier added, despite Carney’s resume and current honeymoon period as leader, he is still untested politically and Liberals’ current resurgence may be only a short-term one.
“It’s going to be a lot closer than we thought,” he said. “There’s still a possibility of a Liberal minority coming out of this, maybe a slim Conservative majority, or maybe even a slim Liberal majority, whereas a year ago, we wouldn’t have had any doubt about what was going to happen.”
What are the other issues?
The response to U.S. threats to Canadian sovereignty and Trump-imposed tariffs on Canadian exports have dominated much of the run-up to the campaign, Baier acknowledged, but there are other issues the parties will push to court voters.
Carney’s announcement that the Carbon Tax would no longer be applied to consumer products undermined a major piece of the Conservatives messaging in recent years, Baier said. That means you can expect the parties to square off more on pocketbook issues, he added.
“I think we’ve heard a lot on taxes and who’s going to offer the most in the terms of middle-class tax cuts. We’re hearing lots of niche proposals already,” he said. “I think a lot of people on the North Shore would see themselves in that vein.”
While the prospect of tariffs will no doubt have economic effects on the North Shore, they wouldn’t be nearly as impactful as they would in parts of the country where manufacturing and exports are key drivers of the economy.
Here, Baier expects to see campaigns focused on a lot of the same issues we just saw play out in the last provincial election – housing, public safety and affordability.
“I think you’re talking about a fairly educated voter base. We’re talking about people who are fairly politically alert,” he said.
New battle lines
Depending on where they live, voters might want to double check which riding they are voting in, Baier cautioned, as all three North Shore electoral districts had their borders redrawn by the electoral boundaries commission in 2023. To maintain representation in Parliament, the non-partisan commission seeks to ensure all ridings have roughly the same number of residents in them.
North Vancouver-Capilano now includes a swath of West Vancouver including Ambleside below the Upper Levels Highway as far west as 21st Street. In that same process, Burnaby North-Seymour’s boundaries shifted westward to include Capilano University, Calverhall, Lynn Creek, Lynn Valley Centre and the eastern side of upper Lynn Valley.
“The zigzag down Mountain Highway that the boundary commission decided to put in is absurd, but that’s the way they’re doing it,” Baier said, “When I drive down Lynn Valley Road to get onto the highway, I see two Liberal signs, two Conservative Signs, and two NDP signs, because they have to reach those voters where they are.
"And people are going to be really confused as to where they’re supposed to be voting or who they’re supposed to be paying attention to,” he said.
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