Federal election officials were aware of the likely timing of the 2025 election call more than two months in advance, according to internal emails, yet Elections Canada has yet to explain widespread voting irregularities that followed.“It appears we will have an election call on March 25 or 26,” wrote Pierre Verriere, a communications manager in the Elections Commissioner’s office, in a January 17 email discussing staff vacation planning. Blacklock's Reporter says Verriere also asked for updates on staffing and budget expectations for the year.At the time, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had just announced his resignation on January 6 and suspended Parliament. His successor, Mark Carney, officially called the election on March 23..Despite the early warning, Elections Canada faced significant issues in the run-up to the April 28 vote. The agency later apologized for multiple failures and will be questioned by the House affairs committee when Parliament returns September 15.Among the problems: on May 7, the agency confirmed that 822 completed mail-in ballots in 74 ridings were found dumped at a returning office in Coquitlam, B.C. It claimed the outcomes in those races were unaffected.It also confirmed that polls in the Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou riding closed without explanation, contributing to a low voter turnout of 47.6%. Liberals narrowly won the riding from the Bloc Québécois. “I deeply regret some electors in Nunavik were not able to cast their vote,” said Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault. “To them I apologize.”.In Terrebonne, Que., where Liberals won by a single vote, Elections Canada acknowledged it failed to process valid mail-in ballots because of misprinted labels. A ruling from Québec Superior Court is pending.Additional failures included hours-long outages of the agency’s election night results database and website, which disrupted public access to poll location information. Elections Canada has not explained those technical issues.The agency also has yet to clarify why 120,641 requested mail-in ballots went uncounted. Access To Information requests have been filed to determine how many were mailed too late to be returned. In the 2021 general election, 90,000 ballots were received after the deadline and discarded.
