Conservative MP Michael Ma has announced he is leaving that caucus to join the federal Liberals.
In a statement released Thursday by the Liberal Party, Ma said, “After listening carefully to the people of Markham–Unionville in recent weeks and reflecting with my family on the direction of our country, I have informed the Speaker and the Leader of the Opposition that I will be joining Prime Minister Mark Carney in the government caucus.”
This floor crossing puts the Liberals at 171 seats — one short of a majority in which the Liberal Speaker of the House of Commons would vote to break any ties, and two seats short of a majority where they do not need to rely on the Speaker to vote to break ties.
Ma said Carney is offering “the steady, practical approach we need to deliver on the priorities I hear every day while door knocking in Markham—Unionville.”
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He added that this is a time for “unity and decisive action for Canada’s future.”
In a statement on X, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Ma was elected by the constituents of Markham–Unionville “to fight against Liberal inflationary spending driving up the cost of living in his community.”
He said Ma has now chosen to “endorse the very policies he was elected to oppose.”
Poilievre added that those policies are “driving up food prices and making life more expensive for all,” saying the people Ma “let down the most are the ones who elected him to fight for an affordable future.”
He said Ma “will have to answer to them.”
His floor-crossing comes only weeks after former Conservative MP Chris d’Entremont also crossed the floor to sit with the Liberals, and after Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux announced he will be resigning from the party caucus.
Poilievre faces a leadership review at the party convention in January. This latest departure is expected to put pressure on him as party members decide whether he should stay on as leader.
A senior Conservative strategist, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal party matters, told Global News that Ma’s departure is another blow to Poilievre’s leadership as the party’s grassroots prepares to meet in Calgary next month.
The source went so far as to suggest the Conservative leader should take his own walk in the snow over the holiday break, referencing the phrase that former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau used when announcing how he came to his own decision to resign as prime minister decades ago.
“MPs aren’t leaving because they’ve suddenly become Liberals. They’re leaving because Pierre has made the Conservative tent uninhabitable,” the source said.
“Hopefully he uses the Christmas break to realize that the only departure that will actually stop the bleeding is his own.”
More to come.
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