The Practical Effects Of Majority

With last night’s clean sweep of the by-elections, Mark Carney becomes our first Prime Minister to convert a minority to a majority parliament without the benefit of a general election — so let the games begin!

As a practical matter, a majority parliament will still largely function as a minority until the majority asserts itself to remake committees. This will be a messy bit of sausage making that will permanently alter the tone in the House of Commons.

The House’s permanent committees each currently have ten members — 5 Liberal, 4 Conservative, and 1 Bloc, except the four committees traditionally chaired by the opposition which have only 4 Liberal members each. This gives the Conservatives and the Bloc together the majority on all committees. This impacts motions, studies, legislation, witness lists, reports, and all the work parliamentary committees do.

To operate as the majority they now have, the Liberal government will have to assert their majority on committees, either increasing the Liberals to 6 members per committee, or, more likely, reducing the Conservatives to 3. This can be done through a motion in the House, which can be debated extensively and will face plenty of dilatory — literally, ‘intended to cause delay’ — motions. You might even see an unscheduled fire drill in West Block, one of the more extreme obstruction tactics observed in the past that can never be quite proven to be anything more than a fascinating coincidence.

It isn’t likely to happen until the three new MPs are sworn in, which is probably about two weeks away. While the government is insisting that they will continue to work across party lines even with a majority, it is unlikely the opposition will go along for that ride. The House is just starting a four-week stretch, and until Tatiana Auguste, Doly Begum, and Danielle Martin are paraded into the chamber in the middle of it, we can expect an uneasy peace as everyone waits for the first shot to be fired.

Once the motion to restructure committees is tabled, and until it is dealt with, the House of Commons will all but cease to function as opposition-controlled committees continue to assert their majorities while they still have them, and opposition parties performatively fight tooth and nail in the chamber to prevent that from changing. In an instant, legislation will come to a grinding halt. Committees will become completely dysfunctional until their restructuring is complete.

In order to end the impasse, the government will be obligated to bring in closure, forcing an end to the debate and bringing about a vote on the motion which, from a practical standpoint, is inevitable in the circumstances.

In that moment, the opposition will begin screaming bloody murder. They will claim that the Mark Carney government, which crossed the line into a majority through last night’s by-elections, bringing them to a majority endorsed by a majority of Canadians in polls, is somehow illegitimate. They will claim that the government is abusing its new-found power, and is somehow anti-democratic. They will accuse the government of stifling debate.

That One-Seat Difference

With it all, Pierre Poilievre will get what he actually wants: an end to any form of accountability. Facing a majority, he can exercise his one skill — to oppose with impunity. There will be no need to negotiate, no requirement for Conservative members to suddenly find themselves facing technical problems while trying to vote from behind the curtains to prevent an unintended election. His team will no longer have a reason to compromise on legislation or find a way to make committees work.

He will get what he craves most: a toxic Parliamentary work environment where all collaboration and compromise can come to an unceremonious end. And, with it, the prospect of three years of unhinged badgering of the government in an attempt to break their honeymoon.

To get to this point, Poilievre has chased four members of his own caucus out through his obstinance. Chris d’Entremont, Michael Ma, Matt Jeneroux, and Marilyn Gladu all abandoned the Conservatives for the Liberals between November and April, joined by Lori Idlout who crossed from the NDP in the same period. Without them, this majority would not yet exist.

When Marilyn Gladu and Lori Idlout both cross the floor to join the same Liberal caucus, you know the government is on to something. At the Liberal convention in Montreal, nobody pretended that what is happening in the United States is normal, or that things will ever go back to the way they were. It has given partisans on all sides a serious degree of pause, an opening to become serious.

There is a palpable sense that the country is bigger than any one political party, that the moment we are living requires a certain gravitas that the normal cut and thrust of our politics does not offer.

In normal times politics often degrades into a team sport rather than a values proposition. The Conservatives in particular make the whole game of politics about the unity of their team — their tribe, even — take precedence over any deeply philosophical purpose beyond helping that team.

Poilievre's Vision: Oppose Everything. Always.

This time, it is different. In the face of unprecedented foreign threats, Canada has itself become the team. Members of Parliament and Canadians in general with diverse backgrounds and values are coming together with a unity of purpose.

For the Conservatives who still back Poilievre, the American threat is not visible. It is not viscerally understood in the way it is through the rest of Canada. They cannot see it, because the MAGA movement remains integral to the Conservative team; it is precisely who they want to help.

As they continue to see our national politics as little more than a domestic team sport, where winning is their only objective and that at any cost, they will do everything in their power to make Parliament dysfunctional. They will try to paint the Liberal government as illegitimate and undemocratic, and do everything possible to prove it.

The now-majority Liberal government will have the power to act decisively in these unprecedented times, but the spirit of unity that is driving the country forward will be under constant attack. There will be little in the way of the much-needed constructive debate that would be offered by an opposition that is offering an alternative rather than an obstruction. The unhinged toxicity that we experienced from the Conservatives through the Trudeau years will be back with a vengeance, but this time the stakes are higher.

While Carney’s majority government can get down to the serious and difficult work required, Poilievre’s team sees running Canada as little more than a game.