Carney will meet the House, where the little things will matter

Globe and Mail

25-05-2025

Mark Carney will meet the House of Commons for the first time this week, and his Liberals are a few votes shy of a majority. But it's not the survival of his government that he has to worry about – not yet. It's the little things.
Every party in the opposition he faces is returning bruised, weakened in one way or another.
The Conservatives are returning without their leader, Pierre Poilievre, who spent months demanding an election, then lost the vote and his seat. The Bloc Québécois, which last fall set deadlines for concessions from the government, is now chastened from the loss of a third of their caucus. The NDP are a leaderless, status-less, penniless corporal's guard of seven MPs who publicly disagreed on who should take temporary charge.
It would take all three of those parties banding together to bring down Mr. Carney's Liberals on a confidence vote. They won't be mustering that kind of moxie anytime soon.
Yet that doesn't mean Mr. Carney can be confident he will be able to govern like he has a majority. In a minority Parliament, the opposition will have the power to trip up the government in lots of little ways.
In the last Parliament, the Commons ground into gridlock. Legislation didn't move for two months because of a procedural tussle: The Conservatives moved a privilege motion over the government's refusal to cough up some documents and filibustered it, speaking day after day. With an election coming, the Bloc and the NDP didn't want to side with the Liberals to lift the siege.
There won't be that kind of scorched-earth tactic now. Mr. Poilievre has promised more collaboration, and there won't be as much public tolerance for obstructionist tactics when there's a newly-elected government promising crisis-atmosphere action.
But when opposition MPs control the Commons, they have the power to cause headaches and embarrassments for the government in power – taking up time, making headlines and sometimes eroding its reputation.
If opposition MPs outnumber Liberals on Commons committees, they could vote for the government to produce internal documents – such as the ones from the now-defunct Sustainable Technology Development Canada that led to last fall's Commons standoff.
They could also launch hearings into government missteps and scandals summoning senior civil servants and other witnesses.
In the last Parliament, opposition parties launched nearly two years of hearings into ballooning costs and contracting abuses in the development of the Canada Border Services Agency's ArriveCan app. They never got to the bottom of things but produced regular examples of government ineptitude.
Mr. Carney may be a new prime minister, but the Liberals have 10 years of tenure behind them, and past missteps could be unearthed to serve as future banana skins.
What's not yet clear is just how much power the opposition will have over the workings of Parliament.
With only seven seats, the NDP doesn't have the official status that bring a seat on the Commons' Board of Internal Economy, which allocates parliamentary resources and budgets. Without party status, the party could be cut out of seats on parliamentary committees, too.
But such questions about money and committee membership, and whether the Lliberals will retain a majority on some committees, will be up for negotiation. If the Liberals don't throw a bone to the NDP, the Conservatives and Bloc might – and Liberals must worry that the three parties could band together to rewrite the rules of the Commons to give the opposition more control.
Why does it matter? Governments don't win re-election in parliamentary committees. But they can take up time and attention, and they are a platform for the opposition to erode the government's popularity.
The fact that the opposition parties are licking wounds now means that there's a good chance that some, perhaps all, will feel stronger in a year or 18 months – and maybe willing to brave another election.
New Democrats might feel they could regain party status in another election. If the trade-war crisis dissipates, the Bloc might feel they're less likely to be squeezed out in an election that doesn't revolved around the question of which leader will handle U.S. President Donald Trump. And the Conservatives might eventually like their chances to wrest power.
In the meantime, it's the little things in a minority Parliament that could cause Mr. Carney a lot of trouble.