Canada's Liberal leader Justin Trudeau rode a late surge to a stunning majority election victory, toppling Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives with a promise of change and returning a touch of glamour, youth and charisma to Ottawa.

Mr Harper conceded defeat and the Conservative Party announced his resignation, ending a nine-year run in power and the 56-year-old’s brand of fiscal and cultural conservatism that voters appeared to sour on.

The Liberals seized a parliamentary majority, a turn in political fortunes that smashed the record for the number of seats gained from one election to the next.

The centre-left Liberals had been a distant third place party before this election.

We beat fear with hope. We beat cynicism with hard work

“My friends, we beat fear with hope. We beat cynicism with hard work. We beat negative, divisive politics with a positive vision that brings Canadians together,” Trudeau, 43, told a crowd of cheering supporters in Montreal.

“This is what positive politics can do.”

The photogenic son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau pledged to run a C$10 bn (€6.7 bn) annual budget deficit for three years to invest in infrastructure and help stimulate Canada’s anemic economic growth.

This rattled financial markets ahead of the vote and the Canadian dollar weakened on news of his victory. Mr Trudeau has said he will repair Canada’s cool relations with the Obama administration, withdraw Canada from the combat mission against Islamic State militants in favour of humanitarian aid and training, and tackle climate change.

He vaulted from third place to lead the polls in the final days of the campaign, and will now return to the prime minister’s residence in Ottawa where he grew up. Liberal supporters at the party’s campaign headquarters broke into cheers and whistles when television projected that Trudeau would be the next prime minister.

The Conservatives become the official opposition in Parliament, with the left-leaning New Democratic Party in third.