The path across the aisle is often a precarious one for members of Parliament and few who switch parties make it through the next election.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s minority Liberal government has brought in four opposition MPs, making a majority government within reach.
Smiling broadly, Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomed MP Lori Idlout to the Liberal caucus on Wednesday after convincing yet another opposition member to defect to the governing party — a political coup that brings him one step closer to a majority government.
Speaking briefly to reporters on Parliament Hill with Idlout by his side, Carney said the former New Democrat is “one of the greatest constituency MPs” who has ably represented Nunavut, a riding he noted is as big as Mexico but has a small fraction of the people.
He said Idlout is “very down to earth,” and together they will work on projects “large and small in Nunavut.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney has called byelections in the Toronto ridings of University-Rosedale and Scarborough Southwest and the Quebec riding of Terrebonne — races the Liberals will want to win to secure a thin majority government.
The byelections will be held on April 13, according to a news release posted on the prime minister’s website Sunday morning.
The Libs may lose the Quebec riding, Toronto will vote stupid as is their culture.
The clearest attempt at a line of demarcation during Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s speech on Canada-United States relations was an apparent rejoinder to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s insistence that a “rupture” has occurred.
Quoting a John F. Kennedy hymn about the geography, history, economics and necessity that have brought Canada and the U.S. ever closer, Poilievre said the former president’s “insight captures a reality deeper than any temporary dispute.”
We find ourselves suddenly returned to the great days of the set-piece speech. At a time when attention spans are said to be shorter than ever, when the media is consumed with clickbait and politics is all about getting likes on TikTok, in recent weeks the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have each chosen to deliver lengthy, learned, intricately argued speeches on, of all things, foreign policy.
Coyne back on his meds?
A majority of Canadians say members of Parliament should not be allowed to cross the floor to another party and should face an “immediate” byelection if they do so, a new poll suggests.
However, Wednesday’s Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News found Canadians’ displeasure with floor-crossing MPs has not hurt the overall approval for Prime Minister Mark Carney or his Liberal government.
OTTAWA — Nearly half of Canadians say they would vote Liberal if an election were called today, giving Prime Minister Mark Carney’s party its largest lead since 2016.
Forty-nine per cent of decided voters would vote for the Liberals, while 35 per cent would vote Conservative, according to the Postmedia-Leger poll that was taken between Feb. 27 to March 2. That’s a two-point jump for the Liberals and a three-point drop for the Conservatives since late January.
Pierre Poilievre, leader of His Majesty’s loyal opposition, is visiting the King’s home turf this week, where he gave a keynote speech at Margaret Thatcher’s think tank of choice. The visit comes at a good time for Poilievre to open his ears as well as his mouth.
For the United Kingdom is deep into a period of political turmoil, one that is seeing the fragmentation of the country’s vote, with the mainstream and historically dominant Conservative and Labour parties ceding ground to insurgents from either extreme.
“I’m going to be on the phone full steam, and later on, do a U.S. trip,” Premier Doug Ford told reporters at Queen’s Park on Monday. The Toronto Sun responded with its trademark headline treatment: “Doug, you’re not helping,” warning his CNN appearance risked inflaming an already bad situation.
There’s no doubt Premier Ford’s plain speaking makes for good television. But he must walk a fine line: advocate for Ontario’s interests, yes, but without handing U.S. politicians an excuse to dismiss Canada’s case as foreign meddling. On Monday, on Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room, he crossed that line.
The U.S. Supreme Court was unequivocal: The tariffs imposed under the Trump administration were unconstitutional in their legal rationale. That distinction matters. The court did not declare tariffs themselves illegitimate. It rejected the justification used to impose them.
There were two speeches inside the speech on Canada-U.S. relations that Pierre Poilievre gave Thursday. One was intended to make him sound like a grown-up. The other was to make him sound different than Mark Carney.
The first part was the kind of political repositioning that Mr. Poilievre has long needed.
The NDP should have a singular focus for the short- and medium-term: finding a way back to official party status. Everything else can come later. In fact, everything else will only come later if the NDP is once again a party with at least 12 seats in the House of Commons. That official party status will unlock desperately needed funds for a starving party: more than $1.1-million, for example, for a party leader’s office budget. There’s another million and change for research. Money for technology, printing and travel. Plus dedicated spots on parliamentary committees, and daily questions during Question Period. A political party needs those things to get its message out, to fundraise, and to grow.
I have a pretty high tolerance for political spin. You kind of have to when you’ve spent years in the House of Commons and on the ground here in Alberta. But a recent opinion column published right here on this platform claiming “moderates are fleeing” the Conservative Party crossed the line from standard spin straight into fiction.
It’s a perfect example of a double standard in our national media that’s getting harder and harder to ignore. As a western and rural Conservative, I’d be the first to suggest there’s always been a left-leaning bias in parts of the press. But since Mark Carney took over the Prime Minister’s Office? It’s on a whole different level. Every single day, it seems like many in media are simply a megaphone for Liberal insiders to vent their wishful thinking about their opponents. Meanwhile, the Carney government gets a near free pass on policies that are actively crushing a once prosperous middle class.
If the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it, Prime Minister Mark Carney might consider visiting the Governor General in the coming weeks and asking her to dissolve Parliament.
The latest polls are starting to show a seductive spread in his favour — both in the horse race, and as far as whom Canadians consider best prime minister.
After announcing months ago he’d be exiting politics last fall to focus “entirely” on his family — who live in Victoria — ex-Conservative Edmonton MP Matt Jeneroux flew to the airport just south of his riding on Wednesday to announce his new allegiance to the Liberals.
Jeneroux says that Mark Carney’s World Economic Forum address in Davos, Switzerland, inspired him to switch teams; after hearing it, “it felt disingenuine and quite simply wrong to be sitting on the sidelines anymore.”
Ooooooh! @fancypants_s https://t.co/ac7F9hUrCu
— Patti Jo (@TheSupeHero) February 23, 2026
