Jeneroux’s defection was announced by Carney on Wednesday as the Liberals press toward majority status in Canada’s House of Commons. Carney said the Alberta MP, Matt Jeneroux, had crossed the floor to join the governing Liberals, adding to recent party-switching momentum that has brought the governing party closer to being able to pass legislation without support from an opposition party.
The announcement positions the latest defection as part of a short-run sequence: AP reported Carney’s Wednesday announcement as the third Conservative lawmaker to join the Liberals in recent months. AP said the governing Liberals’ calculation matters politically because additional gains could reduce the need for opposition alignment when bills come to a vote.
Carney linked the change to the prospect of majority rule through parliamentary arithmetic. The AP report said the defections place the Liberals closer to having a majority government and the ability to pass bills without opposition backing, and it pointed to planned contests for three parliamentary seats in the coming months that could further affect whether the Liberals reach that threshold.
Jeneroux’s explanation for switching was tied, in part, to Carney’s international messaging. The AP report said Jeneroux referenced Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month as helping him decide to join the Liberals.
In a quoted exchange reported by AP during meetings in Edmonton, Alberta, Jeneroux told Carney: “Quite honestly it was the speech in Davos where you took everything head on,” adding, “I think it opened a lot of eyes.” AP said Carney had faced broad attention for remarks at the forum that condemned economic coercion by great powers against smaller countries.
The floor-crossing also adds pressure to Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservatives, whom AP described as having lost the last national election in April and even his own seat in Parliament before later rejoining the House of Commons. AP said Poilievre won a party leadership review last month but continued to have problems controlling his lawmakers.
AP said Poilievre criticized Jeneroux’s decision in a social media post, calling the effort to form a majority government an attempt by Carney to seize power through “dirty backroom deals,” and saying Jeneroux had “betrayed the people of his district.” In the same report, AP said Jeneroux planned to resign in November, and that his shift followed another Conservative member of Parliament leaving the Conservative caucus earlier this year to join the Liberals.
Jeneroux told supporters on social media that he changed his mind after talking with his family and that the moment demands “steady leadership” for the country, according to AP. AP also quoted Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, who said the “third instance of floor-crossing by a Conservative MP in just a few months conveys the message that Poilievre does not fully control his caucus,” adding that such a perception could “undermine his leadership.”
Béland also warned in AP’s account that if the Liberals reached “majority territory soon in a way or another,” federal elections might not occur before October 2029. The AP report said Carney had moved the Liberals toward the center since replacing Justin Trudeau as prime minister in 2025 and winning national elections.