Prime Minister Mark Carney delivers remarks during Vaisakhi and Sikh Heritage Month celebrations at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, on Monday.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
The second phase of Mark Carney’s government now begins. It has a majority in the House of Commons, and that allows it to look further ahead.
In the year since winning a general election on the hustings, Mr. Carney’s Liberals have campaigned by other means.
They have juggled expectations higher and higher – adding onto Mr. Carney’s narrative about an urgent mission to build a Canada independent from Donald Trump’s United States – broadened their political base, and wooed opposition MPs to cross the floor.
After all that, and only one seat shy of a majority, they were always going to seal the deal in Monday’s by-elections.
Two safe Toronto seats, vacated by former Liberal cabinet ministers Chrystia Freeland and Bill Blair, were going to stay in Liberal hands. By the time it came, the do-over in Terrebonne, where Liberal Tatiana Auguste’s one-vote win in 2025 was annulled, was a bonus shot that late Monday night was too close to call.
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Mr. Carney’s tenure can change now. It should. Just as minority governments are automatically more short-term and partisan political, because an election might come sooner than expected, majority governments can plan for later.
The popularity of Mr. Carney’s government had given it some control – Conservatives and New Democrats propped it up in last November’s budget vote. What’s different now is the Liberals don’t need to maintain a commanding lead in opinion polls to be sure they won’t face an election in a few months.
So, after stalling for more than a year, the Liberals could decide to buy American F-35 fighter jets, even though the PM promised the military would buy less American kit, or alternatively go for a split fleet of Swedish Saab Gripens and brave grumbling from generals.
Mr. Carney has more room to resist U.S. trade pressure in this year’s review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on free trade, but also to take the hit for accepting concessions that clash with his brand.
That would be very different from the past year, when the political campaigning was wired into the governing style. Instead of tamping down expectations once in office, Mr. Carney made the promises bigger and louder.
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Last November’s budget was hyped as “generational” and “transformational.” The to-do list of the new Major Projects Office was populated with 14 promised nation-building projects. A new housing agency was created with a promise to accelerate affordable home building. A defence-industrial strategy promised to bolster manufacturing and jobs.
It’s not that Mr. Carney didn’t take risks as a minority prime minister, either. He signed a memorandum of understanding with Alberta’s United Conservative Premier, Danielle Smith, which is supposed to eventually lead to a series of energy and environment measures including a stricter, long-term industrial carbon price regime and federal support for an oil pipeline to the West Coast.
But nearly all those things were building the promises of things to come higher and higher. They are notes that will some day come due, with expectations attached.
The Alberta MOU might still fall apart before the details are put in place and a number of them are supposed to be hammered out this spring.
Carney’s government shifts into new gear with hopes of reaching majority
Last fall’s budget was sold with mountains of hype, but it wasn’t a game-changer for the economy, and it didn’t fulfill the promise to “spend less to invest more.” Mr. Carney could now use this year’s budget to do what many new majority governments do: Slash spending now in the hope it is forgotten by a distant election day.
There will be some smaller politics first. The Liberal government will want to use its majority to take control of parliamentary committees so that the opposition has fewer levers to launch inquiries. Mr. Carney can be expected to shuffle his cabinet to cut loose weak players.
And there is still one political calculation that will decide just how much changes with a majority: Will Mr. Carney still trigger an election sooner rather than later, in the hopes of beating weakened Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre?
This year, certainly, the Prime Minister will be under pressure to use his majority to govern in a second phase of the Mark Carney ministry.
There is the USMCA review. There will possibly be an Alberta secession referendum. There will be a Quebec election, and the separatist Parti Québécois is still at or near the top of opinion polls. There are all those piled-up promises from last year’s election campaign – and in the year of campaigning since.