Canada Votes 2025: Libs polling lead over Cons unchanged after two weeks

Leading up to English-language leaders' debate Thursday, Carney Liberals projected to win 44% of vote, Poilievre's Conservatives 38%, NDP and Bloc decimated

For the 14th straight day leading up to the federal election, vote projections from 338Canada.com show no change in the popular vote projection with the Liberals at 44 per cent and Conservatives at 38 per cent.

The projected seat counts based on aggregated numbers from more than 10 national polls show a large majority expected for the Mark Carney-led Liberals almost all of which is leaked away from the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, with Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives in stagnant seat territory.

There are now 343 electoral districts in Canada, up from 338 due to population growth and boundary revisions. At dissolution, the 338-seat House of Commons had 152 Liberals, 120 Conservatives, 33 Bloc Quebecois, 24 NDP, two Green Party members, three Independents, and four vacant seats.

The 338Canada poll aggregated numbers estimate the Liberals could end up with 193 seats, the Conservatives 121, the Bloc Quebcois 20, NDP eight, and the Greens could get one or two or none. The aggregated polls don't factor in possible independent candidates.

[*These seat projections are a forecast of the most likely results if a general election were held today. The brackets indicate the current ranges from worst to best possible outcomes.] 

The Eastern Fraser Valley has been consistently blue for most of our lifetimes, and all three major parties, Liberal, Conservative, NDP, have candidates in Chilliwack-Hope, Abbotsford-South Langley, and Mission-Matsqui-Abbotsford. The Greens and PPC also have candidates in all three ridings. There is a United Party of Canada candidate running in Chilliwack-Hope, and in Abbotsford-South Langley, long-time BC Liberal MLA for Abbotsford Mike de Jong is running as an independent.

Election day is April 28, advance voting runs all Easter Weekend April 18, 19, 20, 21, and the English leaders' debate is set for today, April 17, 2025, at 4 p.m.

Here are the candidates in the three Eastern Fraser Valley ridings, from South Langley in the west to Hope in the east.

Chilliwack-Hope

Chilliwack-Hope was first created in 2012 with the federal electoral boundaries redistribution, and was first contested in 2015. That incarnation of the riding that includes Chilliwack made it its smallest size ever, created out of 76 per cent of the electoral district of the former Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon, which went all the way from the Vedder Canal up to Cache Creek. That Fraser Canyon and north moved in 2012 to the Mission-Matsqui riding. Now with the 2022 adjustments, the Canyon is back with Chilliwack and Hope, along with the rural areas in between and some stretches north and east.

With the election 11 days away, this is considered by poll aggregator 338Canada.com to be "likely" a Conservative win with incumbent Mark Strahl getting 50 per cent of the vote to Liberal candidate Zeeshan Khan getting 36 per cent. These projections are not based on local polling but are based on historical data and aggregated national polling numbers so there are some definite flaws when it comes to the reality on the ground.

Candidates:

Conservative Party – Mark Strahl (incumbent - 2011-2025)
This has been a riding for the Conservatives as close to a sure-thing as there is. Even the candidate becoming the candidate was a sure thing as daddy Chuck was MP for 18 years, resigned in 2011 and handed the riding to Mark.

Liberal Party – Zeeshan Khan (new candidate)
Zeeshan Khan is the candidate for the Liberals in Chilliwack-Hope announced on April 2. Khan is a newcomer to Canada who has become a prominent community activist. Khan immigrated to Canada with his wife 13 years ago from Pakistan where he was a dental surgeon and she was a dentist.

New Democratic Party – Teri Westerby (new candidate)
Teri Westerby announced on March 24 he is running for the NDP in Chilliwack-Hope. Westerby is currently a trustee with the Chilliwack School Board elected in 2022 making history as B.C.’s first openly transgender man elected to public office. He is a marketing professional, small business owner, and longtime community advocate.

Green Party – Salina Derish (new candidate)
Salina Derish owns PickEco Refills in Chilliwack, the Fraser Valley’s first zero-waste grocery store she launched in 2018, and she is one of the founding directors of the Downtown Chilliwack Market Society. 

People's Party of Canada – Jeff Galbraith (new candidate)
Jeff Galbraith works at IMW Industries in Chilliwack, and his biography on the PPC website describes him as a semi-retired pensioner and Royal Canadian Navy veteran. 

Last election results:

Abbotsford-South Langley

The electoral district of Abbotsford-South Langley is the new riding created out of Abbotsford and portions of Langley with the 2022 federal electoral boundaries redistribution, and comes into effect as of March 23, 2025, with the election call. The riding includes most of the City of Abbotsford along with portions of the Township of Langley and the City of Langley.

Most interestingly here is that 30-year MLA Michael De Jong wanted to be the Conservative candidate for Abbotsford-South Langley but the party decided he wasn't experienced enough, so de Jong is running as an independent.

This is considered by poll aggregator 338Canada.com a toss up between the Conservatives and the Liberals currently projected to get 40 per cent of the vote each. This is a great example of the flawed local projections because former MLA and Conservative wannabe Mike de Jong is running as an independent and is not included in 338Canada's projections, yet according to his own internal polling it is he who is in a dead heat with Sukhman Singh Gill, the 25-year-old son of a blueberry farmer and large Conservative Party donor.

Candidates:

Conservative Party – Sukhman Singh Gill (new)
Sukhman Singh Gill is the Conservative candidate in Abbotsford-South Langley after winning the nomination on March 8. Gill announced in January that he was seeking the nomination, and said he is a lifelong resident of the area and has roots in farming. He's a university student with zero experience.

Independent – Mike De Jong (30-year MLA rejected by Conservatives)
Mike De Jong has been a Member of the Legislative Assembly in B.C. since 1994 but he was told by the Conservatives he was "unqualified" to be the candidate. De Jong served as a cabinet minister under two premiers, including as Attorney General, Minister of Labour and Citizens' Services, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, Minister of Health, Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism, and Minister of Finance where, from 2013 to 2017, he tabled five consecutive balanced budgets.

Liberal Party – Kevin Gillies (new)
Kevin Gillies was announced as the candidate on March 31. Gillies is an Abbotsford realtor who used to be a journalist at the Abbotsford-Mission Times from 1995 until 2003.

New Democratic Party – Dharmasena Yakandawela (candidate in Abbotsford in 2021 election)
Yakandawela is a first-generation immigrant, a former judge in Sri Lanka, and is a practising immigration lawyer with a firm that focuses on providing pro-bono support to individuals. Yakandawela finished third in the 2021 election in Abbotsford with 17 per cent of the vote, spending $2.3 million or one-fifth of the fourth place PPC candidate, one-25th of the Liberal, and one-33rd of Fast.

Green Party – Melissa Snazell (ran for Greens in 2024 provincial election)
Melissa Snazell is a pharmacy technician, a mother of an 18-year-old son, and ran as a candidate in the 2024 provincial election for the B.C. Green Party. She says she has lived in the Fraser Valley for 25 years and have been in Aldergrove for the past 12 years.

People's Party of Canada – Aeriol Alderking (2019 Christian Heritage candidate)
Aeriol Alderking is now the candidate with zero personal information listed on the PPC site other than that she is "a proud supporter of the People’s Party of Canada" who "stands for the core values of freedom, personal responsibility, respect, and fairness." Sh e also believes "that Canada can restore its prosperity and empower the people through bold convictions." Alderking also ran for the Christian Heritage Party in the 2019 election in Abbotsford finishing sixth out of six with 270 votes.

Mission-Matsqui-Abbotsford

Now arguably the weirdest electoral district in the Lower Mainland geographically, this riding encompasses the farmlands of north Abbotsford, Harrison Hot Springs, half of the District of Kent (but not Agassiz proper) and north to just shy of Lillooet and Cache Creek, which mercifully moved to Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola.

This is considered by poll aggregator 338Canada.com to be "leaning" towards the Conservatives projected to get 48 per cent and the Liberals 43 per cent.

Candidates:

Conservative Party – Brad Vis (incumbent in Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2021)
Vis is off to an interesting start. A month ago, he presented a petition in Parliament to "implement a comprehensive Anti-Spam Strategy and stop the harassment of unsolicited and fraudulent phone calls and text messages to Canadian consumers." Early on in the election his team sent out a robocall. Oops. Vis claimed it was unauthorized.

Liberal Party – Jeff Howe (new)
Jeff Howe lives in his hometown of Abbotsford with his wife Tina, and their three children. He's a member of the Law Society of Saskatchewan, and the Law Society of Ontario, and he maintains a law practice focused on Canadian Aboriginal law, according to the party's website.

New Democratic Party – Jules Côté (new)
Jules Côté is a University of the Fraser Valley student, a member of the National Farmers Union, and a community volunteer.

Green Party – John Kidder (new)
John Kidder describes himself as someone who has made a living as a cowboy, a farmer, a range manager, a miner, a fish worker and a warehouseman. He was an environmental economist, an early computer adopter and an entrepreneur in electronic music, software and fibre optics. He's also clearly a realist, maybe to a fault as he describes the incumbent as the "sure winner" but "I want to finish second, with enough votes to fairly reflect your feelings."

People's Party of Canada – Kevin Sinclair (ran in Abbotsford 2021)
Kevin Sinclair is a truck driver and "devoted family man," according to his PPC page. He ran in Abbotsford in the 2021 election finishing fourth, bumping the Green candidate to fifth.

Last election results:

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Paul J. Henderson
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