Canadians Voted for a Minority.
Carney Is Manufacturing a Majority.
On the night of March 10, NDP MP Lori Idlout confirmed she was crossing the floor to join the Liberal caucus. It is the fourth floor crossing since the April 2025 federal election — and the most significant. With Idlout's move, the Liberals now hold 170 seats. The NDP, already decimated from the spring election, falls to just six MPs.
The math is stark. Canadians went to the polls in April 2025 and elected a Liberal minority government. They did not elect a Liberal majority. The difference is not semantic — a majority government in Canada means unchecked legislative power, the ability to pass any bill without negotiation, without compromise, and without the consent of any other party. That is the power Carney is building — without going back to the voters who denied it to him.
at the ballot box
crossings
Two safe by-elections.
The floor crossings did not happen randomly. This was a deliberate, coordinated strategy — and Carney essentially admitted as much. When CBC's Rosemary Barton asked him directly whether he was actively recruiting opposition MPs, he refused to answer. What he said instead revealed everything.
Source: CBC News, December 17, 2025
Source: Global News, December 2025
He met with them. He welcomed them. He said he's open to more. And when Rosemary Barton gave him the direct opportunity to deny he was running an active recruitment campaign, he couldn't do it. That tells you everything you need to know.
The four MPs who have now joined Carney's benches since the election, each representing voters who chose a different party:
Note that last detail about Idlout. In January, she publicly said she could not cross. Last Thursday she was at an NDP leadership rally. By Tuesday night, she was a Liberal. The NDP's own interim leader Don Davies said the party is "very disappointed" and restated their longstanding position: "When someone rejects the decision of their electors and wants to join another party, they should put that decision to their voters."
With 170 seats, Carney is two away from the 172 needed for a working majority. Three by-elections are set for April 13. Here is what those ridings actually look like:
Two of three April by-elections are in deeply safe Liberal ridings in Toronto. Carney does not even need Terrebonne. Between the Idlout floor crossing and two near-certain Toronto by-election wins, a Liberal majority government is effectively guaranteed — without a single competitive vote being cast, and without Canadians ever being asked to grant one.
Terrebonne is worth noting on its own. The Liberals originally won that riding in April 2025 by a single ballot — one vote — before a judge annulled the result and ordered a new by-election. A seat so narrow it required judicial intervention to settle is now irrelevant to Carney's majority math. He no longer needs it. He's already won.
There is a principle at the heart of every democracy: that the people get to decide. Not backroom meetings. Not political maneuvering. The people.
Canadians voted in April 2025. They elected a minority government. That was the mandate. When a Prime Minister actively builds a majority that voters never granted him — one recruited floor crossing at a time — he is telling every Canadian that their vote is a suggestion, not a decision.
Carney's government has functioned without a majority. Legislation has passed. The country has continued. There was no democratic necessity driving this — only the pursuit of unchecked power. And when given the direct opportunity to deny it, he couldn't.
No real democracy should accept this as normal. It is shameful.