Built, not won
Carney’s majority changes less than you think while also changing a lot
Mark Carney now leads a majority government he never actually won. Five floor-crossings, three byelection wins in seats the Liberals already held, and a Supreme Court do-over in the one riding that was even close. One hundred and seventy-four seats, assembled like IKEA furniture — one piece at a time, with occasional confusion about whether you’re doing it right.
A majority built this way is a different animal than one earned on election night, and how Carney governs it will matter.
So what actually changes? Committees.
Most Canadians think the opposition’s job is Question Period. It’s not. Question Period is theatre — grown adults yelling at each other for the cameras while the Speaker tries not to lose the will to live.
The real accountability work happens in committees, where the government can be compelled to produce documents, call witnesses, and answer for its decisions. WE Charity, ArriveCan, foreign interference — all of those investigations relied on opposition-controlled committees forcing the government’s hand.
During the minority, the opposition held those committee majorities. That’s over. The Liberals now control every House committee. They decide who gets called, which files get opened, and which investigations move forward. Any majority government gets this power — it’s structural, not unique to Carney. But it’s worth naming, because when the next scandal hits (and one always does), the opposition will have considerably fewer tools at its disposal.
The procedural stuff matters. But the political story underneath these byelections is arguably more consequential.
Eric Grenier at The Writ published a sharp piece this week showing that Monday’s Conservative by-election losses were the worst the party has suffered in a decade.
11 points in University–Rosedale.
12 points in Scarborough Southwest.
15 points in Terrebonne — where the Conservatives cratered to 3.3%.
You have to go back to 2014 to find comparable losses. That was the year before Harper fell.
Grenier’s read — and I think he’s right — is that by-election trends have historically predicted the next general election. The strong Conservative by-election performances in 2023 and 2024 foretold what was supposed to be the collapse of Trudeau’s Liberals. These results may be doing the same work in reverse.
The easy conservative response is “we were never going to win these seats anyway.” Fair enough. But conservative voters usually still show up in ridings where the party can’t win. They did in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun in 2024. They did in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount in 2023. They didn’t on Monday. That’s a motivation problem. And motivation problems don’t tend to stay contained.
Meanwhile, the majority itself is thinner than it looks. Two seats above the threshold. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith is already eyeing provincial politics, which would open another vacancy. Normal parliamentary wear and tear — resignations, the odd scandal, someone deciding they’d rather go fishing — can eat a two-seat cushion fast. Liberals are apparently courting up to eight more opposition MPs. The floor-crossing era isn’t over. Its purpose has just shifted. Before Monday, it was about reaching majority. Now it’s about insuring it.
Which means the incentive structure that pulled five opposition MPs across the aisle doesn’t go away — it gets stronger. If you’re a Conservative backbencher looking at these byelection numbers and wondering whether you’ll hold your seat in the next election, the math isn’t complicated. It’s just uncomfortable.
Carney’s majority was built, not won. He governs with the arithmetic of a majority and the mandate of a minority. What he does with that gap will define the next two to three years.
New episode of Craft Politics is live. We dig into what the majority unlocks at the committee level, preview the UK’s May elections with Andrew Percy, and take a first look at Quebec’s increasingly unpredictable October election. Listen wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube)