Prime Minister Mark Carney secured his Liberal majority
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre won’t resign, as some had speculated. He said the Liberals won through backroom deals and betrayal
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal party achieved majority status last night, after Liberal candidates won their ridings in three by-elections. The Liberals now have 174 seats in the House of Commons.
In Ontario, the winning MPs are Doly Begum in Scarborough Southwest and Danielle Martin in University-Rosedale. Tatiana Auguste won in Quebec’s Terrebonne riding.
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“This is a time to come together so we can build a Canada strong for all,” Carney said in a statement last night.
The victory follows a steady stream of floor-crossing Conservative MPs who have defected to join the Liberals in recent months. Just last week, long-time Conservative MP of Sarnia-Lambton-Bkejwanong, Marilyn Gladu, announced that she’d decided to join Carney’s party. Many were quick to point out Gladu’s socially conservative voting record, which included opposing a bill to ban conversion therapy. (She later clarified that she does not support the discredited practice.) Carney told reporters that he had spoken with Gladu about how she would vote, and that she would support Liberal policies going forward.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who some expected to resign in the event of a Liberal majority, said last night that he will remain in his position. “The Carney Liberals did not win a majority government through a general election or today’s by-elections. Instead, it was won through backroom deals with politicians who betrayed the people who voted for them,” he said in a statement. “I will continue to lead that fight every day and in every way in Parliament, across the country and in the next election, when Canadians will reclaim the country we know and love.”
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Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
