Edmonton MP Matt Jeneroux is now the third Conservative to cross the floor to the Liberal caucus in recent months — and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is accusing him of betraying voters in his Alberta riding.
Jeneroux's decision to cross the floor will avert a byelection in Edmonton Riverbend and nudge the Liberal seat count up by one in the current minority Parliament.
Prime Minister Mark Carney's government remains three seats short of a majority, but that could change with three byelections expected in the coming months.
The prime minister has not yet set dates for those votes.
Carney met with Jeneroux in Edmonton on Wednesday to welcome him into the governing caucus. He said he has tapped the newly minted Liberal MP as a special adviser on economic and security partnerships.
"It's a great honour to be on the same team as you at a crucial time for this city, for this province, for this country," Carney told him before the assembled TV cameras.
Jeneroux said he was the one who reached out to the Prime Minister's Office. He said Carney's "ambitious agenda" and recent high-profile speech in Davos triggered his change of heart.
"For me, that's where a lot of the world changed," he said, referring to the speech Carney gave before the World Economic Forum about the need for middle powers to unite against coercion by great powers.
Jereroux also suggested his decision was driven in part by looming national unity crises tied to separatist movements in Alberta and Quebec.
"I think it opened a lot of eyes for Canadians, Albertans, Edmontonians, just how serious this national unity crisis truly is and for me it felt disingenuous and quite simply wrong to be sitting on the sidelines anymore," he said.
Neither Jeneroux nor Carney took any questions from reporters.
In a social media post Wednesday, Poilievre accused Carney of "trying to seize a costly Liberal majority government that Canadians voted against in the last election through dirty backroom deals."
He also said Jeneroux "betrayed the people of Edmonton Riverbend" who voted Conservative.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc accused Poilievre of being a hypocrite, noting that Conservative politicians "stood and cheered" when a Liberal MP crossed the floor to join their caucus when Stephen Harper was prime minister.
"He should look in the mirror and ask himself why he's having these challenges in his caucus," said LeBlanc. "It's easy to somehow make up a phrase like 'backroom deals,' he would be the expert in that sort of stuff."
"If his caucus members choose to leave his caucus, he can explain that, and he also should be able to defend why they celebrated similar decisions at a different time in a different Parliament."
LeBlanc said Jeneroux's decision is "good for the people of Edmonton, the people of Alberta and for Canada."
"He wants to join our government in some of the priorities that the prime minister is aggressively pursuing," he said. "That makes our country stronger, it makes our caucus better."
The Liberals now have three MPs from Alberta, with Jeneroux joining Corey Hogan, who represents Calgary Confederation, and Emergency Preparedness Minister Eleanor Olszewski, who represents Edmonton Centre.
Jeneroux has been the MP for Edmonton Riverbend since 2015. He was re-elected last April with just over 50 per cent of the vote, 3,300 votes ahead of the Liberal candidate.
Laura Stephenson, chair of the political science department at Western University, said this episode likely will prompt some "soul searching" among Conservatives — about how to approach Parliament, how much to co-operate with the Liberals and how to prevent further defections.
Stephenson said Jeneroux's move also suggests the Carney team is "out in full force, doing what they can to just secure a majority without going to the polls and a costly election."
Just a few months ago, as rumours spread that he was being courted by the government and was considering crossing the floor, Jeneroux announced that he planned to resign his seat.
He announced his resignation in early November, just days after Nova Scotia MP Chris d'Entremont left the Conservative caucus to join the Liberals.
Poilievre said at the time that Jeneroux planned to step down as a member of Parliament in the spring.
Jeneroux said in a Nov. 6 statement that he was not being coerced into resigning, that he had a positive conversation with Poilievre and that he wanted to spend more time with his family.
Now, Jeneroux has changed his mind — a conclusion he said he reached after long discussions with his family.
"Those conversations have been honest, difficult, and deeply personal at times," he said in a letter posted to social media.
This is the third such blow to Poilievre and the Conservative caucus in recent months.
The first two departures in the fall fuelled speculation about Poilievre’s ability to retain the party leadership — though he handily passed a mandatory leadership review just last month with 87 per cent membership support.
Stephenson said the damage to Poilievre is somewhat blunted by the fact that the party knew Jeneroux already had one foot out the door, adding "it's not like it's a new person coming into the mix" expressing dissatisfaction with the direction of the party.
"For Poilievre, this is bad news, but not as dramatic as it would be to know that another MP or another couple of MPs have been actually courted successfully by the Liberals," she said.
"But it does suggest that that is not stopping."
Ontario MP Michael Ma became the second to defect from the Tory ranks to the Carney Liberals on Dec. 18, and was warmly welcomed at the Liberal Christmas party. Ma had attended the Conservative Christmas party just a day prior.
Carney came within one seat of a majority government after those moves, but that gap has grown since Christmas with the resignations of both Chrystia Freeland and Bill Blair, who both represented Toronto ridings.
A recent Supreme Court ruling also cost the government a seat by overturning last spring's election results in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne.
Liberal Tatiana Auguste had represented Terrebonne since last spring, after winning by just one vote over Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné.
Sinclair-Desgagné challenged the results and demanded a byelection after a party supporter complained she had tried to vote by mail using a special ballot, but it was never counted.
Stephenson said this means there's a "possibility" that the Liberals "get to a majority — a very, very slim, itty-bitty majority — if the outcome in Terrebonne goes the way that it had before."
The Toronto-area seats of University—Rosedale and Scarborough Southwest, which were held by Freeland and Blair, are both considered to be safe for the Liberals. Carney already has appointed candidates for both of those ridings but hasn't called the byelections.
Carney has until the summer to announce dates for the byelections, although they could happen as early as this spring. Terrebonne's byelection must be called by August 15.
If the Liberals do win all three byelections, House of Commons Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia would still need to cast tiebreaking votes to ensure the government's legislation passes.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
