Prime Minister Mark Carney arrives with MP for Nunavut Lori Idlout on Wednesday, the morning after she crossed the floor from the NDP to the Liberals.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
The Liberals’ months-long effort to bring Nunavut MP Lori Idlout into the government was supposed to be revealed with a splash, but ended up going public in a scramble.
Still, the end result for Prime Minister Mark Carney was the same: A majority government is now firmly within reach.
Ms. Idlout, the only MP in Nunavut, met with Mr. Carney in Ottawa Tuesday night, their photo posted alongside Mr. Carney’s statement Wednesday officially welcoming her to the Liberal caucus.
They appeared together before the party’s caucus meeting, where Ms. Idlout said there was no one thing that sealed her decision to leave the NDP.
She has been an MP for the party since 2021.
“There are a variety of many things that have allowed me to really reflect on this, and I’m very thankful to be so warmly welcomed,” she said.
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Her defection is the fourth since Mr. Carney formed government last year, putting his Liberals two by-election wins away from shedding their minority status. The repeated floor-crossings have been criticized by opposition leaders.
Ms. Idlout’s warm welcome to the Liberal caucus was preceded by cold comments from interim NDP leader Don Davies. He broke the news that she was leaving in a statement late Tuesday night, saying he was disappointed.
Justice Minister Sean Fraser said Wednesday that he’d reached out to Ms. Idlout right after the spring election, saying if there were ways to work together to benefit the community, she should let him know.
“It wasn’t necessarily with this outcome in mind,” he said.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Ms. Idlout didn’t reference the role her move could play in getting the Liberals to a majority.
“It started to, every day, to feel like I was betraying the wrong people, that I was betraying my constituents,” she said.
“And with leaving the NDP, I feel like I’m betraying them too, but at least I keep my focus on making sure that my constituents always come first.”
Nunavut MP Lori Idlout cites Arctic sovereignty, the rights and aspirations of Indigenous peoples and climate change as her reasons for moving to the government bench.
The Canadian Press
Ms. Idlout said in the interview that she too first started thinking about joining the Liberals after the 2025 election reduced the NDP from an official party in the House of Commons to only seven seats.
Efforts to get her onside appear to have ramped up late last year as Liberals began actively trying to get opposition MPs to cross the floor.
But Ms. Idlout said she asked the Liberals to give her some breathing room in December. She then reached out to the Liberal riding association in Nunavut this year.
Prior to Ms. Idlout joining the Liberal caucus, three Conservatives crossed the floor over the past few months, and all were sharply criticized by Leader Pierre Poilievre. On Wednesday, he directed his ire at Mr. Carney.
“Mark Carney is using backroom deals to seize a costly majority that voters rejected, which will enable Liberals to balloon debt, inflate the cost of living, block resources and turn criminals loose on our streets,” he said.
Mr. Davies also expressed unease.
“I’m becoming increasingly concerned by the way that Mr. Carney is trying to stitch together a majority government in this country,” he said.
“To us, whether or not there’s a majority government is fundamentally a decision of the Canadian people at the ballot box.”
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The Liberals now hold 170 seats, two shy of a majority.
By-elections for three vacancies are scheduled for April 13. Two are in Toronto ridings that regularly vote Liberal: Scarborough Southwest and University-Rosedale. The third is in Terrebonne, near Montreal.
The Liberals won Terrebonne by a single vote over the Bloc Québécois last year. The Supreme Court recently annulled the result.
If the Liberals win two of the by-elections, they will have 172 seats, the threshold for a majority government.
Chief Government Whip Mark Gerretsen pointed to the by-elections when pressed on whether Mr. Carney was trying to get a majority through undemocratic means.
“We’re not in a majority now and we have three by-elections, and those are elections,” he said.
Ms. Idlout won 47.7 per cent of the vote when she was first elected, in 2021. The Liberals were second with 35.9 per cent.
In the 2025 election, she won 37.3 per cent of the vote; the Liberal candidate took 36.7 per cent.
That candidate, Kilikvak Kabloona, said on social media that she looked forward to advancing Inuit and Nunavut equity and prosperity with Ms. Idlout in her new role.
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In her official statement about the decision to join the Liberals – issued at 1 a.m. Wednesday – Ms. Idlout cited a desire to be a voice for the North at a critical time.
“With new threats against our sovereignty and pressures on the well-being of people throughout the North, we need a strong and ambitious government that makes decisions with Nunavut – not only about Nunavut,” she said.
“The success of that work needs all of our voices.”
Mr. Carney said it was an honour to welcome her to the team, calling her one of Canada’s greatest constituency MPs.
He noted that her riding is the size of Mexico and called her down to earth.
“We’ve had conversations about what we can do both large and small in Nunavut, large projects, but also helping everyone get ahead,” he said.
Over the past year, the government has made several funding pledges for the North.
The Nov. 4 budget included a specific reference to funding a planned Inuit Nunangat University, which the government said last month will be worth $50-million. It also announced an Arctic infrastructure fund, worth $1-billion over four years and financial commitments for Indigenous housing.
Dennis Patterson, who was the senator for Nunavut until his retirement in 2023, noted that without party status, the NDP does not have research support, committee seats or chances to press the government in Question Period, he said – something Ms. Idlout now has as a Liberal.
“I think she made a pragmatic decision to cross the floor so as to have a voice, to have influence,” he said, though he added that it remains to be seen how much tangible influence she will have.
With a report from Bill Curry