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Pierre Poilievre enters House of Commons by polling over 80 percent in Battle River-Crowfoot
Pierre Poilievre ended with a tally of 40,548 votes as the overall vote percentage was recorded at 58.82.
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Prabhjot Paul Singh - Tue, 19, Aug 2025
- 22:09 EDT
- 8
Pierre Poilievre. / X/@PierrePoilievre
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre is headed back to the House of Commons after becoming the projected winner of the Battle River–Crowfoot federal byelection. He received a little more than 80 per cent of the total votes cast.
Against 53,684 votes polled by Damien Kurek in the 2025 general elections, Pierre Poilievre ended with a tally of 40,548 votes as the overall vote percentage was recorded at 58.82 (based on results of 285 of 286 segments in the riding).
It was a crowded race, with 214 candidates registered in the rural riding, the vast majority of them part of a protest group calling for electoral reform.
Interestingly, of more than 200 Independents in the fray, Bonnie Critchley (5013), finished second as Darcy Spady of the ruling Liberals was a poor third and Katherine Swampy of the NDP fourth. Only 17 of the 214 candidates could register votes in double figures. Others to get 10 or more votes included Grant Abraham (United), Jonathan Bridges (People’s Party), Ashley MacDonald (Green), Michael Harris (Libertarian), Jeff Willerton (Christian Heritage), Sarah Spanier (Independent), Kenneth Kirk (Marijuana), Ahmed Hassan (Centrist), Jenny Cartwright, Bert William Westergard, Breccan Zimmer, Dillon Anderson, and Jasan Buzzell (all Independents). Yagya Parihar, a candidate of Indian origin, polled two votes.
In the last general elections, Liberal candidate Brent Sutton had finished runner-up with 7566 votes, while this time Darcy Spady finished third, failing to reach the double-figure mark with 2174 votes (4.3 per cent).
The byelection was held after Conservative MP Damien Kurek, who represented the riding, resigned so that Poilievre could run in the Conservative stronghold and gain a seat in the House of Commons. Damien had polled 41,819 votes in 2021 and 53,684 in April 2025.
Poilievre lost his Ottawa-area riding of Carleton, which he had held for more than two decades, in the April 28 election. Liberal candidate Bruce Fanjoy won the riding by more than 4,500 votes.
Following the election, Poilievre held that his loss in Carleton was due to his stated plans to reduce the size of the federal government, which could have proven unpopular with the many government workers in the riding.
Kurek, who had held Battle River–Crowfoot since 2019, officially resigned his seat on June 17, after which Prime Minister Mark Carney called the byelection. Carney had said that he would call the byelection as soon as possible, and that there would be “no games.”
With Parliament returning in September, Carney and Poilievre would face each other in the House for the first time.
Kurek said it had been “nothing short of a privilege” to serve the people of the riding, and he looked forward to supporting Poilievre in the race and then “running here again in the next general election.”
While Conservative MP Andrew Scheer has been serving as leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, Poilievre spent several months campaigning in communities in Battle River–Crowfoot, much of the time alongside Kurek.
The Alberta riding was targeted by the Longest Ballot Committee (LBC) protest movement, which is the same organisation that targeted Poilievre’s former riding of Carleton and resulted in 91 names being on the ballot. The LBC is demanding that Canada change its first-past-the-post election system to a proportional representation system.
With a record number of candidates running in the Battle River–Crowfoot byelection, Elections Canada announced in late June that the vote would use a special ballot requiring voters to write in the name of their chosen candidate, instead of marking a standard list of names.
It further said that votes for candidates were counted even if their names were spelt incorrectly.
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