Federal election 2015, by the numbers

 

It’s been a long one. Eleven weeks, five leaders debates, seven million tweets—by any measure, this campaign has been one for the record books. In the end, the only number that really matters is 184, the number of seats won by Justin Trudeau’s victorious Liberals. To help make sense of it all, Maclean’s crunched the numbers behind the most interesting, and ridiculous, moments of the campaign.

How many seats each party had before Parliament was dissolved:

• Conservatives: 159
• NDP: 95
• Liberals: 36
• Greens: 2
• Bloc Québécois: 2
• Independents: 8
• Forces et Démocratie: 2

How many ridings the parties have now (as of 3:00 a.m. on Tuesday):

• Liberals: 184
• Conservatives: 99
• NDP: 44
• Bloc Québécois: 10
• Greens: 1
• Independents: 0
• Forces et Démocratie: 0

Number of seats the Conservatives lost between 2011 and 2015: 64

Number of Conservative cabinet ministers who lost their seats: 13

First riding to be called: Coast of Bay–Central-Notre Dame, N.L. (It went Liberal.)

People who voted at advance polls: 3.6 million

Debates: 5

Candidates: 1,792

Polling stations: 65,000

People eligible to vote: 26.4 million

Elections Canada workers: 230,000

Number of people at the Blue Jays game not watching the results come in: 49,751

Number of prime ministers who served as Opposition leaders after being defeated: 12 (The most recent was John Turner.)

Number of Opposition leaders who have become prime minister: 14 (William Lyon Mackenzie King did it three times.)

Prime ministers who used to be lawyers: 16

Prime ministers who used to be economists: 1

Prime ministers who used to be drama teachers: 1

Unique Twitter hashtags from the campaign:

• #peegate used 46,000+ times
• #Harperman used 38,000+ times
• #OldStockCanadians used 23,000+ times
• #HarperANetflixShow used 12,000+ times

Number of election ads in which a candidate slays a dragon by jumping off a flying goose: 1

Number of people who voted in Canada’s first election in 1867: 268,387

Highest voter turnout in a Canadian federal election: 79.4% (in 1958)

Number of coalition governments in Canadian history: 2 (John A. Macdonald’s government in 1867 and Robert Borden’s government in 1917)

Canada largest riding: Nunavut, at 2.1 million sq. km

And the smallest: Toronto Centre, at 6 sq. km

Distance by car between Vancouver’s West Point Grey Academy, where Justin Trudeau used to teach, and 24 Sussex Drive: 4,371 km

Number of candidates each political party ran (alphabetically):

• Alliance of the North: 1
• Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada: 8
• Bloc Québécois: 78
• Canada Party: 1
• Canadian Action Party: 3
• Christian Heritage Party of Canada: 30
• Communist Party of Canada: 26
• Conservative Party of Canada: 338
• Democratic Advancement Party of Canada: 4
• Forces et Democratie: 17
• Green Party of Canada: 336
• Independent: 74
• Liberal Party of Canada: 338
• Libertarian Party of Canada: 72
• Marijuana Party: 8
• Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada: 70
• New Democratic Party: 338
• No Affiliation: 6
• Party for Accountability, Competency and Transparency: 1
• Pirate Party of Canada: 5
• Progressive Canadian Party: 8
• Rhinoceros Party: 27
• Seniors Party of Canada: 1
• The Bridge Party of Canada: 1
• United Party of Canada: 1

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