The recent jubilation in Liberal circles over the arrival in their caucus of a former Conservative MP, Michael Ma, was premature to say the least. Although it was widely presented in the media as a major coup for prime minister Mark Carney and his government – a sort of early Christmas present – Ma’s defection is actually of minimal benefit to the Liberals in their quest for parliamentary dominance, despite the fact it also delivered a lump of coal to Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. In reality, the many statements suggesting the Liberals – at 171 MPs — are now only one shy of a majority are patently misleading. The truth is that the Liberals are nowhere near the safe majority they need to ensure the various elements of their “ambitious” agenda receive prompt parliamentary approval in 2026.
The speedy passage of government legislation is obviously important at any time. But when the prime minister argues that the country is facing an unprecedented set of challenges, and his policies are designed to remedy this crisis, the important becomes the crucial. Yet in the 2025 fall session of Parliament recently ended, the Carney government actually achieved less than the Trudeau government in its last fall 2024 sitting of Parliament, even though that session was described by politicians and media alike as “toxic” and “paralyzed”. [i]
How can this be? After all, the 2021 election left the Liberals in much worse shape. Despite winning 160 seats, they still needed a minimum of 170 seats, or ten more, for even a razor-thin majority in a 338-seat House of Commons. By contrast the Carney Liberals, at 169 seats, are technically only 3 seats short of a bare majority in a House now comprised of 343 seats, after the latest redistribution added 5 seats. Now the Liberals have acquired two more seats with the defections of Ma and his former Conservative colleague Chris d’Entremont, leading many observers to say the Carney government is only one seat shy of that elusive majority. Yet in many important respects these Liberals are in a more precarious position than the Trudeau government that preceded them.
What is the difference? The simple answer is the collapse of the NDP in the 2025 election. The NDP won 25 seats in 2021, or more than twice the number of seats needed to ensure the Liberals had a secure majority. Then NDP leader Jagmeet Singh quickly signed a Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Trudeau government, just months after parliament returned following that earlier election, thereby allowing the Liberals to carry on with their agenda as if they were a majority. Only after Singh announced he was ‘tearing up’ the agreement in fall 2024 did the government encounter serious resistance to its efforts, and even then many items were already in the legislative process and the NDP was supportive of them.
That situation has not been repeated after the 2025 election. On the contrary, the NDP has been reduced to 7 seats, and as a result is not even eligible to be recognized as an official party. Worse still, the 7 surviving NDP MPs appear to have wildly differing agendas and none appears prepared to follow the direction of their House Leader, veteran MP Don Davies. As a result, he is in no position to guarantee any votes for the Liberals, even informally. So there will definitely be no formal agreement with the NDP to support the Liberals.
This reality was made abundantly clear during the vote on the Carney budget, the quintessential non-confidence scenario. In the end the legislation passed by a slim margin of 170 to 168, with two NDP MPs and two Conservative MPs abstaining and the lone Green MP, Elizabeth May, supporting the government. But the outcome was far from clear until the actual event, as all opposition parties refused to commit to supporting the government.
Moreover, and particularly important in the longer run, is the fact that even if the Liberals succeed in attracting one more disgruntled Conservative MP to the fold, those 172 votes will merely result in a tie if all opposition MPs vote against a measure. The fact that many such votes will not be confidence situations (which would automatically bring down a government) is neither here nor there. The legislation will not move forward unless the Speaker breaks the tie. True, by convention a Speaker will vote with the government to break a tie, but this is typically a rare event, and certainly not expected to be a regular occurrence. And of course the current Speaker is a Liberal MP. So, if this becomes a frequent event, the non-partisan nature of the Speaker is sure to be up for debate and the House is sure to become obstreperous.
All of this begs the question of whether all opposition MPs will vote against the government. Again, with the NDP so irrelevant, the fact that the Bloc and the Conservatives appear to be finding much in common these days does not bode well on that front, whereas in the past it would have actually been quite difficult to find many issues on which the two parties shared a common view. At a minimum, now, the Bloc and the Conservatives are both likely to find many ways to delay proceedings and hold up progress in the House, because this at least is something where are they are most likely to find common cause.
Another fact that is often overlooked is that the Liberals may not be able to mount a full slate of votes on a particular bill. The Carney Liberals are far to the right of many longstanding Liberal MPs in the caucus, and these left-leaning veterans may not be willing to go along with every measure the government proposes if it is simply seen as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, introducing measures that the Conservatives would have been comfortable with, especially on the environment and social programs. Clearly Carney and his cabinet will have to take caucus opinions into careful consideration. And then there is the fact that life often intervenes. If an MP is ill they may or may not be able to vote remotely. And it is increasingly likely that some Liberal MPs will voluntarily leave the fold before the next election. Chrystia Freeland, for example, is scheduled to leave Canada for a post at Oxford next spring. While her riding is generally seen as a safe Liberal seat, not all of those who head for the exits may be in the same situation.
Last but hardly least, the current situation differs significantly from that of the Trudeau minority in that the NDP is not an official party in the House. An even more important consequence of this development is that the party is not represented at all on parliamentary committees. When Liberals and NDP MPs were present on committees under Trudeau they could generally run the show. Now, with the NDP absent, the Conservatives and Bloc can cause endless delays at committee stage if they choose, despite the fact the Chair by tradition is from the government side, and hence a Liberal MP. This is precisely what happened last week when the Liberals’ so-called Anti-Hate bill stalled in committee.
Given all of these caveats, it is far too soon to assume that there will be smooth sailing ahead for the Carney government in Parliament. That is undoubtedly why rumours have now begun to circulate that the Liberals are considering offering Don Davey the post of Speaker, a move which would free up one more Liberal vote automatically. At this stage, almost anything is possible in the new and unexpected world of politics during the time of Donald Trump. Perhaps the prime minister will still have visions of sugar plums, or at least of a workable Liberal majority, before the end of the holiday season.
[i] https://www.davidmoscrop.com/p/the-year-of-our-dysfunctional-parliament
