Canada’s Carney edges closer to majority government as legislator defects to Liberals

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA, Feb 18 (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Wednesday edged closer to a parliamentary majority that could help him counter U.S. tariffs when an opposition legislator defected to the ruling Liberals.

The Liberals, governing with a minority after an election last April, need opposition support to pass key legislation such as budgets. That can be a slow process, and Carney has said he needs a majority to react more effectively to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade measures.

Carney said Matt Jeneroux of the official opposition right-of-center Conservatives, who represents a constituency in the western province of Alberta, would sit with the Liberals in the House of Commons.

CARNEY NEEDS THREE MORE SEATS

The centrist Liberals now have 169 seats in the 343-seat House of Commons elected chamber, three short of a majority. Three seats formerly occupied by Liberals are vacant and, if the party wins all three, Carney would have control of the chamber.

“The world has changed, and Canada must change with it. This is a time to come together — and together, we will build a stronger future,” he said in a post on X. 

Later on Wednesday, Carney is due to meet Jeneroux, who said in a statement that he wanted to help tackle “unprecedented pressures” on Canadian prosperity and sovereignty.

A majority would open the way to Carney serving until April 2029. Canadian elections are held no later than every four years.

Carney must formally announce special elections to fill the vacant seats. Two are in Liberal strongholds and should be easy wins, but polls indicate the third, in a Montreal suburb, will be a much tighter race.

The defection is the third from the Conservatives to the Liberals in recent months and will put more pressure on leader Pierre Poilievre, who survived a leadership review last month after he blew a large lead and lost the April 2025 election.

“Mark Carney is trying to seize a costly Liberal majority government that Canadians voted against in the last election through dirty backroom deals,” Poilievre said in a post on X, accusing Jeneroux of betrayal.

(Additional reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones and Bhargav Acharya in Toronto;Editing by Will Dunham, Edmund Klamann, Rod Nickel)