Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced three by-elections on 13 April – races that could give his party a majority in the government.
Two of the by-elections will be held in Toronto, in constituencies that are considered strongholds for Carney’s Liberal party, while the third will be a closely watched contest in Montreal where his party won by just one vote last year.
If they win all three seats, the Liberals would secure a narrow majority government, allowing the prime minister to pass legislation more easily and avoid an election for three more years.
The Liberal government currently has 169 seats in parliament, just three shy of a majority in Canada’s House of Commons.
Carney has been able to get so close to a majority, in part, due to recent defections by three former Conservative members of parliament.
The two Toronto seats up for a by-election were left vacant after the resignation of Chrystia Freeland, who stepped down after accepting a voluntary role advising Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Bill Blair, who was appointed as Canada’s envoy to the UK.
Freeland’s former seat in University-Rosedale, and Blair’s former seat in Scarborough Southwest, have both been occupied by Liberal MPs since 2015.
The third constituency — a suburb of Montreal called Terrebonne — had been held by the separatist Bloc Québécois since 2015. It had flipped to the Liberals in 2025 thanks to one singular vote.
A by-election in Terrebonne was ordered by the Supreme Court of Canada, however, after the Bloc Québécois candidate called for a do-over due to reports that a Bloc voter’s mail-in ballot was returned because of a misprint.
The upcoming Terrebonne election will be a re-match between Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste and Bloc Québécois candidate Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné.
The Liberal Party has already begun its ground campaign in the Montreal suburb, organising calls and knocking on doors in an effort to win over voters.
In recent months, the Carney government has attracted several former Conservative MPs to its ranks – a move the opposition Conservatives have called “undemocratic”, accusing the Liberals of using “pressure tactics” on their members.
Recent polls suggest the Liberals could win a majority government if an election were to be held today.
By BBC News
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