Canadian voters have elected Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau as prime minister, dramatically ending the nine-year government of Stephen Harper.
As soon as results arrived from central Canada, broadcasters were prepared to declare Mr Trudeau was set to be the 23rd prime minister of Canada.
Further counting firmed up the victory, with Mr Trudeau and the Liberal Party set to govern as a majority government, a dramatic recovery from the 2011 election when the Liberal Party won just 34 seats.
Conservative Party president John Walsh said Mr Harper would resign as party leader.
“I have spoken to prime minister Stephen Harper and he has instructed me to reach out to the newly elected parliamentary caucus to appoint an interim leader,” Mr Walsh said in a statement.
Mr Trudeau is the son of charismatic former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who governed Canada from 1968 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1984.
His victory comes the day after his late father would have turned 95.
For the first time since his father’s last victory in 1980, Mr Trudeau led the Liberal Party to a majority of seats in the French-speaking province of Quebec, breaking the separatist hold on the province.
“When the time for change strikes, it’s lethal,” former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney said in a television interview.
“I ran and was successful because I wasn’t Pierre Trudeau. Justin is successful because he isn’t Stephen Harper.”
Mr Trudeau has said he will repair Canada’s cool relations with US president Barack Obama’s administration, withdraw Canada from the combat mission against Islamic State militants in favour of humanitarian aid, and tackle climate change.
He has pledged to run small budget deficits and spend on infrastructure to stimulate economic growth, which has been anaemic for years, raise taxes on high-income Canadians and reduce them for the middle class.
The result has been a disaster for the New Democratic Party, which swept Quebec and finished ahead of the Liberals across Canada at the 2011 election.
Political pundits have already began to speculate on the makeup of a Mr Trudeau government while pondering what caused the downfall of Mr Harper, 56, who has been criticised for his aloof personality but won credit for economic management in a decade of global fiscal uncertainty.
Mr Harper had banked on a long 11-week campaign to wear down his political opponents.
The Conservative campaign to label Mr Trudeau as “just not ready” built up low expectations for Mr Trudeau, expectations he easily exceeded in televised debates and in day to day campaigning.
Mr Harper’s government had been hit hard this year by tough times in the resources sector and was harmed in the campaign as statistics revealed Canada had slipped into recession.