Prime Minister Mark Carney arrives at the Liberal national convention in Montreal on Saturday.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is shifting into a new gear, as the Liberals hope to clinch a majority in the House of Commons with by-election wins in Toronto and Quebec on Monday.
The by-elections follow five defections to the Liberals since November, an unprecedented pace among recent minority governments. The floor crossings have put the Liberals one seat shy of a majority.
They are are now widely expected to win that majority in the by-elections, with two of the races in Liberal strongholds.
Opinion: Liberals celebrate imminent majority with a touch of old hubris
A combination of floor-crossers and by-elections turning a minority government into a majority has never happened before in Canada.
Though Liberals attending their party’s convention in Montreal over the weekend didn’t want to presuppose Monday’s outcome, party insiders say a majority will affect the government’s mindset and approach.
Mr. Carney also dropped hints of what his agenda will look like over the coming months in his speech to the convention.
More details will follow in the spring economic update, expected within weeks, as the Liberals seek to better tie their long-term agenda to the short-term pressures facing Canadians.
Carney preaches national unity in campaign-style speech at Liberal convention
“This is not the time for politics as usual, petty differences for political point scoring,” Mr. Carney said in his remarks.
“United, we will build Canada strong, a Canada for all.”
In April, 2025, voters delivered Mr. Carney a minority mandate, with 169 out of 343 seats.
The Conservatives formed the Official Opposition with 144.
Last fall, the Liberals began pursuing opposition MPs open to crossing the floor. Five have made the move since November – four were Conservatives, and one was from the NDP. The Globe and Mail has reported that as many as eight more are being courted.
Liberals courting as many as eight more potential floor-crossers, sources say
The Library of Parliament said that more than 300 instances of floor crossings in Parliament have been recorded since Confederation, but there are no records of an instance where floor crossings moved a government from a minority to a majority.
The latest floor crosser, MP Marilyn Gladu, brought the Liberals to 171 seats, more seats in total than the opposition parties. But there are three vacancies in the House of Commons.
Those will be filled in Monday’s by-elections, two of which were called after the Liberals in those ridings resigned: former finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland in University-Rosedale and former defence minister Bill Blair in Scarborough Southwest.
Ms. Freeland has taken a job administering the Rhodes Trust charity, while Mr. Blair has been appointed Canada’s High Commissioner in the United Kingdom.
The Liberals are widely expected to win both seats, which would bring their total in the House to 173 – a clear majority.
The result in Monday’s third by-election, in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne, is less certain. The Liberals won by a single vote in last year’s general election but the Supreme Court annulled the result.
The Liberals used their Montreal convention as a springboard to send high-profile MPs, cabinet ministers and busloads of volunteers into the Quebec riding to shore up Liberal support for candidate Tatiana Auguste.
But the convention was more broadly a rallying moment for the Liberals as they head into the second year of their mandate.
They won a minority last year on a promise to build a stronger Canada in response to the geopolitical upheaval created by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Mr. Carney ended his convention speech Saturday with a renewed pledge to keep building – but stressed that the government intends to build “for all.”
Liberals are aware it is difficult for many Canadians to draw a direct line between the major infrastructure projects the government has prioritized and their own daily lives. They also know that much of what they have announced so far – they have promised more housing, a stronger military and new export markets – will take years to be felt.
How they can better connect those dots and provide more immediate support to Canadians is now under discussion.
Mr. Carney framed it this way in his speech: Build a Canada that’s not just prosperous but also fair.
A particular pressure point the party is monitoring is the hit Canadians are taking from sky-high gas prices. In his speech, Mr. Carney referenced the need for “affordable energy for Canadians today.”
How a majority will reshape Mr. Carney’s government operations will take time to materialize. A cabinet shuffle is likely, though possibly months away.
The most visible change in the House of Commons will be on committees, which play a crucial role in studying and approving legislation.
Currently, opposition MPs narrowly outnumber the Liberals on committees. With a majority government, the Liberals would look to change that, which would likely involve a motion in the House of Commons.
There will also be something of a mental shift.
MP Kody Blois, one of two parliamentary secretaries to Mr. Carney, said no one wants to prejudge Monday’s outcome. But should the by-elections deliver a majority, he added, it will make a difference.
“Assuming it is a clear working majority, and we’re not going to go back to an election for three years, it allows the senior leadership around the Prime Minister to again focus on the work that we’ve been doing for the past year, and not get bogged down in the idea that we would be going to the polls in the next couple months,” Mr. Blois said.
Ralph Goodale, who served as a Liberal MP and cabinet minister in several governments, said a majority government doesn’t relieve all the pressure for Mr. Carney’s team.
“As the internal confidence level goes up, externally, the level of expectation will go up,” he said.
“So in dealing with both of those things, the bottom line is delivery. Produce results, get the job done and be able to show to the caucus and to the public, the critics and the stakeholders that things are getting accomplished as they would expect a majority to be able to do.”
With a report from Bill Curry