🍁 Mark Carney gets a Liberal majority government. 🇨🇦
Almost a year ago, Mark Carney's Liberal Party of Canada won the parliamentary national election. It was a remarkable achievement considering that the Liberals had been number three is some opinion polls just four months earlier. But the Liberals still fell several seats short of a majority leaving Carney to lead a minority government. In such a scenario, he had to rely on deals with members of other parties to pass major legislation.
But over the past few months, a handful of opposition MPs have changed party affiliation to Liberal. And thanks to byelections to fill vacancies in three ridings (constituencies) on Monday which saw a Liberal clean sweep, Prime Minister Carney now leads a majority government.
Mark Carney enters his majority era
There have been a total of 24 prime ministers in Canada's history, but before Monday night only 13 could claim to have led their party to a majority of seats in the House of Commons. Mark Carney is now the 14th to do it. [ ... ] With a new — if narrow — majority, the Liberals will be able to more easily move legislation through the House and through the committees that review legislation. The Liberal cabinet will be able to survive confidence votes, and it can start thinking about not having to face a new election until 2029. In that way, the difference between 171 seats and 173 seats is massive. But for the sake of their own comfort, the Liberals might still want to find another couple seats.
This will be Canada's first majority government since 2019.
The official standings at Canada's House of Commons – updated today.
^^^ Lib = Liberal Party; CPC = Conservative Party of Canada; BQ = Bloc Québécois; NDP = New Democratic Party; GP = Green Party.
