nullified the result<\/a> over a clerical error involving a postal ballot by the federal election agency, Elections Canada.<\/p>\nWins in Toronto will be enough for Carney to clinch a 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 political science 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 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 dissatisfaction with Poilievre’s leadership style and how remote the prospect has become that Conservatives will ever form 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 in which 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 have 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":[17,1643,1066,1625,127,1624,122,1626,111,310],"class_list":{"0":"post-2467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mark-carney","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-conservatives","10":"tag-elections-canada","11":"tag-federal-election","12":"tag-justin-trudeau","13":"tag-liberal-candidate","14":"tag-liberals","15":"tag-majority-in-the-house-of-commons","16":"tag-mark-carney","17":"tag-the-liberals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467","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=2467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467\/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=2467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}