What securing a majority would mean for Mark Carney's Liberal government

What is a majority government?

A majority government is formed when a political party has more than half of the seats in the House of Commons. Currently the House has 343 seats, which puts the magic majority number at 172.

Right now Carney’s government sits at 171 seats.

Minority governments must work with other parties to secure enough votes to pass legislation, including on matters which test Parliament’s confidence in that government, such as budgets and throne speeches.

A majority government can breathe a little easier on those key votes.

So as long as the members of the governing party all vote the same way, they can pass or reject any law because they have more than half the votes. The opposition parties, meanwhile, lose leverage against a majority government because they’re unlikely to change the outcome of a vote.

David Coletto, founder of the polling and market research firm Abacus Data, said for a minority government, every piece of legislation is a negotiation.

“You need opposition support, which means compromise and delay,” he said. “With a majority, the government passes what it wants on its own timeline.”

What was the last federal majority government?

The last federal majority government was won by former prime minister Justin Trudeau in 2015, when his Liberals captured 184 seats.

The 2019, 2021 and 2025 elections all resulted in minority governments.

Carney’s Liberals won 169 seats in last year’s general election, but three of those have since been vacated, two due to resignations and one which had the electoral result overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Five opposition MPs have crossed the floor to join his government.

Three byelections are set for Monday. Two Toronto-area byelections are being held to replace former cabinet ministers Chrystia Freeland and Bill Blair.

The third byelection is being held in Terrebonne, an off-island Montreal suburb, after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the results from April 2025 were invalid due to a clerical error in the return address of mail-in ballots. It’s a closely fought rematch between Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné and Liberal Tatiana Auguste, who won by a single vote last spring.

What’s wrong with having a narrow majority?

If the Liberals only manage to reach a majority of 172 MPs, House Speaker and Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia could vote in a tiebreaker to pass motions — but only under certain conditions.

To maintain neutrality, the Speaker traditionally maintains the status quo if they have to vote. That means they normally would not pass new legislation, but would support the government on confidence matters.

So the Liberals need that extra seat to effectively govern with a majority.

Dan Arnold, chief strategy officer at Pollara and a former pollster for the Trudeau Liberals, said a lot of risk comes with a “bare bones” majority.

“If somebody gets sick or trips on the way to vote, you could lose a vote,” he said, adding governments also need to prepare for sudden resignations or appointments to diplomatic positions.

Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith is exploring a run for the Ontario Liberal leadership and plans to vacate his seat in Beaches—East York as soon as Premier Doug Ford calls a byelection in a vacant Ontario seat.

And if the Liberals continue to take in floor crossers who may have conflicting views on specific policies, Carney’s government runs the risk of seeing some of its MPs abstain from close votes. A few extra MPs would serve as insurance, Arnold said.

“I’m sure Carney would love to get a three, four, five seat majority to get a little more of a cushion there,” he said. “He’s from the business world and you always want a contingency fund in business in case market conditions get worse.”

How would a majority affect committee meetings?

Majority governments typically hold majorities on committees — places where the opposition can really slow down legislation.

MPs unanimously agreed in June to set up committees for the rest of this Parliament made up of five Liberals, four Conservatives and one member from the Bloc Québécois. Neither the NDP nor the Green party have official party status because they didn’t elect at least 12 MPs so don’t get an official seat on committees.

The Liberals don’t automatically get another seat on committees if they get a majority, and committees can’t just be reset by proroguing Parliament and starting a new session with a throne speech.

If the government wants more control over committees, it would need to either get the opposition parties to agree to a change that limits their power, or amend the Standing Orders.

Arnold said governments like having majorities on committees so that they can control what those committees investigate.

What would change in the House of Commons?

Arnold said the way the Liberals interact with other parties likely wouldn’t change much with a majority, since Carney has been governing with a “de facto majority.”

“He has not really gone out of his way in the past year to negotiate compromise with the other parties. That’s one of the luxuries of being up in the polls … you can basically dare other parties to vote against you and they won’t because they don’t want an election,” he said.

If the Liberals drop in the polls, he said, they’ll have to start thinking about working with other parties — as Trudeau’s Liberals did when they made a supply-and-confidence agreement with the NDP.

Coletto said in a majority situation, the Liberals wouldn’t need to make deals.

“In a minority, the NDP or Bloc can extract real concessions in exchange for support. Dental care happened that way. In a majority, that leverage is gone entirely,” he said.

How would opposition parties be affected?

Arnold said a Carney majority would “secretly” be a good thing for the NDP because it would give its MPs the freedom to vote against the government without risking an election.

”(NDP Leader) Avi Lewis is probably very relieved that he has a bit more time to raise money and find candidates and get the NDP election-ready,” he said. “Having a majority gives him the time to do those things without having to support the government.”

For Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives, Arnold said, the situation would be “more challenging,” given that four Conservative MPs have crossed the floor to the Liberals. He said the Conservatives probably don’t want an election any time soon either.

“I think there’s a lot of questions that have been asked and will be asked about Poilievre’s leadership and I think he’s going to have to fight to hold on to the leadership this year because of how Carney got there,” he said.

Coletto said a majority “shrinks the opposition’s world considerably.”

“The Bloc and NDP lose their leverage overnight. For the Conservatives, it’s potentially three years of figuring out how to take on Carney and whether Poilievre is the best leader to do that,” he said.

“For the NDP, it’s time to rebuild. And the Bloc will have one eye on what happens in Quebec’s provincial election to see where they stand.

“A majority may actually suit most of them better than they’d admit. Right now Carney looks close to unbeatable, and in a majority all the accountability lands squarely on the Liberals. If things go sideways, there’s no one else to blame. The opposition just has to show up and be ready.”

What does this mean for the timing of the next federal election?

Canada’s fixed election date legislation would set the next federal election to take place no later than October 2029, but that law does not prevent a vote from happening sooner.

While minority governments are less likely to survive the full four year term prescribed under that legislation, majority governments can still trigger an election earlier if they want.

Arnold said when a government has a majority, it has more freedom to choose the timing of elections.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 10, 2026.

—With files from Sarah Ritchie