“Canadian Politics”

Floor-crossing has always been a feature of Canadian politics dating back to the first Parliament — and seeing four opposition MPs jump ship to join the government in a matter of months is rare but not unprecedented.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has only been in office for a year and is ranking near the top in terms of prime ministers who have had opposition MPs join his caucus during a parliamentary session.

John A. Macdonald, Robert Borden and Jean Chrétien attracted a swath of MPs to their respective governments — though all in vastly different circumstances.

It looks like Pierre Poilievre is going to be stuck with the worst damn job in all of Canada for a while longer.

Between Lori Idlout’s decision to defect from the NDP to the Liberals and Mark Carney’s team sure to win at least two if not all byelections next month, the Prime Minister will get his majority and Poilievre will stay as opposition leader.

By luring now-former NDP Lori Idlout across the floor to join the Liberal caucus, Prime Minister Mark Carney has brought his Liberals up to 170. With three byelections pending, two of which are in reliably safe Liberal seats and the third a Liberal-Bloc tossup, the Liberals seem set to achieve a bare minimum majority in the near future, almost a year after falling just short of that mark in last year’s election. And possibly even exceed it by a single seat, freeing the speaker from those awkward tie-breaking votes.

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.

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.

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.