Mark Carney is on a roll, and he has just won a spectacular bet.

After naming Conservative MP Richard Martel to the Senate, he called a byelection in Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, in the Quebec heartland. The Liberals won a decisive victory on Monday and are solidifying the majority the prime minister cobbled together with the help of floor-crossers.

It amused me a great deal, in the lead-up to Carney’s victory in the Liberal leadership race last year, to hear his opponents — and a fair number of pundits — sniff that Carney had no political experience and was going to be just like Michael Ignatieff, the author and academic who served as the party’s leader in Opposition from 2008 to 2011.

I got to know both of them and patiently explained, time and again, that Carney was no Ignatieff and that Ignatieff was certainly no Carney.

For a guy who wasn’t supposed to know much about politics, Carney has shown some extremely deft moves. He behaved like a central banker building reserves when he decided to construct the majority he had been denied in the 2025 general election,........

© Montreal Gazette