Mark Carney will get his majority. Now what?
After 12 months, five floor crossings and one Liberal convention this weekend in Montreal, Mark Carney is going to get his majority government. If the Liberals win the three byelections scheduled for next week, and they should, they’ll have 174 seats, enough to pass legislation without relying on the Speaker of the House of Commons or support from another party. Carney’s Liberals will also regain control of the parliamentary committees, which will allow the party to better shape and support the government’s agenda. For a prime minister who is clearly more comfortable operating as a chief executive than a parliamentary coalition builder, this is the moment he's been waiting for.
The majority didn’t come without a cost. The latest defection from the Conservative Party of Canada is also, by far, the most controversial. Marilyn Gladu, the MP for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, has a rich history of comments that seem pretty obviously out of step with Liberal values, whether it’s her bizarre theories about marijuana, her past appreciation of Donald Trump or her fondness of — and support for — the trucker convoy. It’s not hard to imagine the Liberal Party’s most progressive supporters taking a closer look at Avi Lewis’s........
