Running for office is supposed to be hard. Earning a majority is supposed to be harder. Mark Carney has apparently found a shortcut.

Friday marked the one-year anniversary of Carney’s swearing-in as Canada’s 24th prime minister. It is worth pausing on what that year has produced. In the spring of 2025, Carney called a snap election and came up short: 169 seats, three shy of a majority. Voters looked at his platform and decided a minority government was the appropriate level of trust. The electorate spoke clearly. Carney has spent the twelve months since working to overrule them.

Four opposition MPs have now crossed the floor to join the Liberal caucus. First came three Conservatives: Nova Scotia’s Chris d’Entremont in November, Toronto’s Michael Ma in December, and Edmonton’s Matt Jeneroux in February. Then, on March 11, Nunavut NDP MP Lori Idlout followed suit, giving the Liberals 170 seats. Two by-elections in Toronto on April 13, filling vacancies left by Bill Blair and Chrystia Freeland, are expected to deliver the final two seats needed for a majority. A third by-election in Terrebonne, ordered by the Supreme Court, could expand that margin even further.

If this strikes you as an unusual way to build a majority government, that’s because it is. By the time those by-elections are done, Carney will have assembled a majority not from 172........

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