RANDALL WHITE, NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK, TORONTO. THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2026. The long and short in Canadian federal politics is that Lori Idlout, New Democrat MP for Nunavut (a far-northern Inuit-majority constituency geographically larger than Mexico, PM Carney notes) has now crossed the floor in the House at Ottawa, to join the Carney Liberals.

This gives the Liberals 170 seats in a parliament where 172 constitutes the barest majority. If, as widely expected, they win at least the two Toronto seats slated for by-elections on April 13, the Carney Liberals will have finally achieved the barest of majority governments, without a fresh general election. (And the last such election which, as it were, made Mr Carney a minority prime minister was only on April 28, 2025 — less than a year ago.)

As often urged by close Ottawa observers, a bare majority government of this sort will not be much more commanding than the strong (or “major”) minority government PM Carney has now.

If, as usual, the House Speaker comes from the majority party eg, that will leave the governing Liberals with 171 regularly voting MP s, against 171 regularly voting opposition MPs. The Carney government will still have to frequently work with Green, New Democrat, Bloc Québécois, or even Conservative MP s to pass legislation.

At the same time, in one of the two Toronto seats the Liberals are widely expected to win on April 13 (Scarborough Southwest) the Liberal candidate is the former deputy leader of the Ontario provincial New Democrats. (See my February 26 counterweights piece “Two cheers for Doly Begum .. as Canada stiffens its defenses against Trump’s USA.”)

That makes two (more “left-wing”) NDP partisans who have recently joined the federal Liberals, along with the three (more “right-wing”) Conservative MP s who have also crossed the floor to join PM Mark Carney’s minority governing party.

Now the federal Liberals are drawing fresh supporters from both the right and the left. And this reflects the support base suggested by recent opinion polling.

The four most recent polls consulted by the aggregator 338 Canada eg all have the Liberals well ahead of the Conservatives — by respectively 8, 11, 14, and 14 points! (And 338 Canada’s March 8, 2026 seat projections based on current polling assign the Carney Liberals 201 seats, for an utterly dominant majority government!)

(1) Meanwhile back at Mar-a-Lago

On her own testimony Lori Idlout’s two main reasons for crossing the floor are : “”With new threats against our sovereignty and pressures on the well-being of people throughout the North, we need a strong and ambitious government that makes decisions with Nunavut — not only about Nunavut.”

The threats against Canadian sovereignty of course come largely from Premier Donald Trump in a particular version of the USA today that mindlessly covets Canada, one way or another. At the moment, however, Trump seems most preoccupied with his undeclared war on Iran.

Here his current big problem is that he claims vast success for US military operations in Iran this time around. Yet this success does not seem to mean that Iran is now unable to block the global oil supply that ordinarily passes through the Strait of Hormuz adjacent to Iranian territory.

See here eg : “Trump urged commercial vessels to continue sailing through the trait of Hormuz despite escalating attacks on merchant shipping, saying shipowners should not be deterred by security risks in the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint … ‘These ships should go through the Strait of Hormuz and show some guts … There’s nothing to be afraid of… they have no Navy, we sunk all their ships.’”

More recently, various reports have pointed out problems with Premier Trump’s argument. See eg : “Trump Tells Ships to ‘Show Some Guts’ in Hormuz as Seafarer Death Toll Rises” ; “Cargo ship struck in Strait of Hormuz amid Iran war” ; “Third cargo vessel hit in Strait of Hormuz” ; and “Iran official: Strait of Hormuz will be for ‘peace and prosperity’ or ‘defeat and suffering’.”

(2) “It would take nothing short of a ceasefire to get commercial ships moving again”

The ultimate logic in this case, I think, was nicely laid out last Friday in a CNN piece on “The big problem with Trump’s plans to open the Strait of Hormuz,” by Vanessa Yurkevich, Chris Isidore, and Phil Mattingly.

This piece notes that “Trump has promised to provide government-backed insurance policies and naval escorts to keep ships moving. But threats from Iran to attack any ships in the region outweigh the promises of support.”

Yurkevich, Isidore, and Mattingly go on : “Trump’s plan is designed to give shipping companies assurances that they’d be able to move through the strait. But Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said he doesn’t know of any shipping line that would take the risk … Seroka said that after talking with shipping executives, it would take nothing short of a ceasefire to get commercial ships moving again.”

Premier Trump has recently said some things which suggest a ceasefire of this sort could happen sooner rather than later.

He has also said other things that suggest he really has no serious idea of what will happen next, or what he really wants to do, or what is seriously possible.

Or how much this is in fact fundamentally Israel’s war.

With Trump’s USA still reputable enough (for the moment) to let Netanyahu’s Israel do things in the Middle East it would never quite get away with on its own.

And, at the same time again, how much longer can this particular wild and crazy alliance go on?