It took nearly a full year and a handful of byelections and defections for Prime Minister Mark Carney to assemble enough members of Parliament to turn his minority government into a slim majority — a feat that has never happened in Canadian politics before.
The Liberals won in three byelections Monday, giving them 174 seats in the House of Commons. Only 172 seats are needed to secure a majority.
That makes Carney's the first federal government in Canada's history to switch from a minority to a majority between elections.
"Tonight, voters have placed their trust in our new government's plan," Carney said in a statement on social media.
"We accept that support with humility, determination and a clear understanding of what this moment demands."
Two of the byelections in the Toronto area were Liberal strongholds recently vacated by former cabinet ministers. The third was a close race that produced a late-night result.
The party threw everything it had at the campaign in Terrebonne, a traditional Bloc Québécois stronghold.
Before last week's surprise announcement that a fifth opposition MP -- staunch Conservative Marilyn Gladu -- was joining the Liberals, Terrebonne was seen as the final piece in the puzzle that would allow Carney's government to actually control the House of Commons.
The suburban riding near Montreal saw a rematch between Liberal Tatiana Auguste and Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, a year after it produced the closest result in the country in the last federal election.
After a judicial recount of the results from last April, Auguste won by a single vote. Sinclair-Desgagné challenged the loss all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which invalidated the results because of a clerical error on the return address for some mail-in ballots.
The Liberals dispatched their entire Quebec caucus and Carney himself to the riding to bolster support for Auguste.
In a short speech in French to her supporters, Auguste said it had been a long year and pledged to work for her constituents.
Sinclair-Desgagné, who represented the riding for the Bloc between 2021 and 2025, congratulated her opponents late Monday, especially for the abundance of resources they had for their campaign.
She said her campaign would have needed a platform three times the size, a parade of cabinet ministers and a party convention at Terrebonne's front door to compete with what the Liberals brought.
"And despite all that, they beat us by just a few hundred votes," she said in French.
In Toronto, Danielle Martin took the stage to celebrate her victory in University—Rosedale, a riding previously held by former cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland before she left politics.
"As of tonight, Mark Carney and our entire incredible Liberal team have earned an even more powerful mandate to continue building a better Canada," Martin said.
"This is not a mandate to be quiet. It is not a mandate to take our time. It is a mandate to get to work."
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi
