Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals could soon form a slim majority in the House of Commons if the party is able to make gains in three by-elections being held on Monday.<\/p>\n
The outcome of the races, two in the Toronto-area and one near Montreal, could solidify his hold on power, staving off a federal election until as late as 2029 and giving his party the ability to pass legislation without relying on support from opposition benches.<\/p>\n
Liberals currently hold 171 of the 343 seats in the House, one shy of a technical majority.<\/p>\n
The likely power shift comes a year after Carney became prime minister, and follows a series of defections by opposition members of Parliament to the Liberals.<\/p>\n
The Liberals are widely expected to win the two Toronto ridings, or constituencies, of Scarborough Southwest and University-Rosedale.<\/p>\n
The seats were previously held by former defence minister Bill Blair – now Canada’s ambassador to the UK – and Chrystia Freeland, who served as deputy prime minister under Justin Trudeau and is now an adviser to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The race in Terrebonne, a Montreal suburb, is considered a toss-up between the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois.<\/p>\n
The Liberal candidate won by a single vote in last year’s federal election in April. In February, Canada’s top court nullified the result over a clerical error involving a mail-in ballot in the riding by the federal election agency, Elections Canada.<\/p>\n
Wins in Toronto will be enough to clinch Carney his narrow majority. But the prime minister has already been able to shore up his bench with five defectors – four former Conservatives and one member of the left-wing New Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
While it’s not unusual for legislators to occasionally defect in Canadian politics, the recent rate of party-switching was “extraordinary”, said Semra Sevi, who teaches at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n
“Carney has built a big tent, attracting members of Parliament who would not normally be associated with the Liberal party,” Sevi told the BBC.<\/p>\n
“The complication, however, is that the tent may now be so big that there isn’t a lot of ideological coherence in it.”<\/p>\n
Carney has been forced to defend the most recent floor-crosser, Marilyn Gladu, who was once seen as more socially conservative and who is “personally pro-life”, though she said she supports access to abortion services.<\/p>\n
Gladu has said she will vote in line with the Liberals on such issues, and Carney has said the party’s “values” have not changed.<\/p>\n
Polls suggest the Liberals are about 10 to 15 points ahead of the Conservatives, the official opposition, with Carney himself maintaining strong support among Canadians.<\/p>\n
The Liberals have taken a more politically conservative shift under Carney, especially compared to Trudeau, making the party more attractive to right-of-centre MPs.<\/p>\n
He has ended a number of signature Trudeau policies, including a consumer carbon tax, and is pushing to make Canada an “energy superpower” and seeking to reduce the public sector workforce.<\/p>\n
The wave of defections has angered Conservatives, who have accused the Liberals of “backroom deals”.<\/p>\n
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has called the floor-crossings “undemocratic” and has said that, by poaching MPs from other parties, Carney is telling those who elected them that “your vote does not count”.<\/p>\n
But they have also raised concerns about frustration within the Conservative caucus under Poilievre, who just over a year ago was in serious contention to become the next prime minister before Carney surged ahead in the polls amid concerns about US-Canada relations under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
“There is a real dissatisfaction with both [Poilievre’s] leadership style, and the realistic prospect of the Conservatives ever forming a government under him,” said Sevi.<\/p>\n
Canadian media have reported in recent days that a handful of other MPs are also being courted by the Liberals to cross the floor.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, as Liberals gathered in Montreal for a party convention, Carney closed out the event with a speech where he pitched unity at a time the country faces a number of crises.<\/p>\n
“Canada’s founding insight is that unity does not require uniformity,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals could soon form a slim majority in the House of Commons if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[1066,1625,127,1624,122,1626,111,310],"class_list":{"0":"post-2439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mark-carney","8":"tag-elections-canada","9":"tag-federal-election","10":"tag-justin-trudeau","11":"tag-liberal-candidate","12":"tag-liberals","13":"tag-majority-in-the-house-of-commons","14":"tag-mark-carney","15":"tag-the-liberals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}