OTTAWA — During the Liberals’ Dec. 11 Christmas party just hours after Conservative MP Michael Ma crossed the floor to the government, soirée hosts James Maloney and Mona Fortier joked to ecstatic attendees that their favourite number was “172”.

That’s the minimum number of MPs a party needs to get a simple majority in the House of Commons. With Ma’s crossing, the Liberals suddenly find themselves one seat away from their favourite number.

With rumours swirling of

more opposition MPs considering defecting

to Liberal ranks, the question becomes: what happens in the House of Commons if a minority government suddenly becomes a majority government?

For most Liberal operatives, the most enticing part of becoming a majority government is to obtain a majority on Parliamentary committees, where opposition MPs have far more latitude to slow the government’s legislative agenda.

As of now, 11 of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government’s 20 bills are currently stuck at second reading or committee consideration, a mandatory step for legislation.

Because you, dear reader, are not paid to ponder these hypothetical questions, National Post reached out to two Parliamentary specialists to flesh out a roadmap of the various procedural moves the Liberals could take if they were to become a majority government.

So, 172 is the magic majority government number?

Technically, yes. But in reality, 172 caucus members, or a one-MP majority, is not the panacea for the Liberals that many imagine it to be.

In fact, in many ways, it’s the worst-case scenario for a majority government, says Lyle Skinner, a constitutional lawyer specializing in parliamentary law.

That’s because the Speaker of the House of Commons, who does not vote unless needed to break a tie, is Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia. Since the Liberals are without Scarpaleggia’s vote, that means they have 171 votes against a combined opposition vote of… 171.

The government could always try to sway opposition votes their way, but it hasn’t shown much inclination to do so this Parliamentary session.

In other words, despite technically having a majority of MPs, a Liberal government with 172 MPs would still be deadlocked with the opposition.

It would then put the Speaker in the awkward position of constantly needing to break the tie.

But then the Speaker, a Liberal, would break the tie for the Liberals, no?

In a purely partisan world, sure. But the Speaker’s role is non-partisan. That means that, per convention, he would be expected to

vote to preserve the status quo

. That thinking was entrenched by Speaker Peter Milliken, who cast a record five votes throughout his tenure from 2001 to 2011.

Since current committee composition (five Liberals including the non-voting chair, four Conservatives and one Bloc for most committees) was adopted unanimously by Parliament after the last election, the Liberals would likely have to introduce another motion to change committees to reflect their majority in the House of Commons.

But if the Liberals and the opposition vote along party lines and are tied at 171, the Speaker will have to break the tie. And since he’s expected to maintain the status quo… the government is likely to lose that vote.

“You need to have a majority votes in order to change the committee composition. The Speaker, based on practice, will vote to preserve the status quo… so it would be incredibly challenging” for the Liberals with a 172 MP majority, Skinner said.

So, the Liberals’ favourite number should probably be 173 or higher?

If they want to be able to act like a majority government, then definitely.

At 173 MPs, the Liberals could maintain the speakership and a razor-thin margin over opposition MPs during votes (172 to 171).

But even then, governing will be far from simple for a Liberal government with 173 MPs, say Skinner and Steve Chaplin, former senior parliamentary counsel for the House of Commons.

With a majority of just one or two MPs, there is no margin for error for the government and its caucus to miss out on a vote.

Furthermore, it would give each Liberal MP extraordinary leverage over their government, allowing them to threaten to withhold their vote or even vote against a bill unless granted certain concessions.

A government MP resigning or even losing a seat in a byelection could see the Liberals “bounce around” between a majority and minority government, says Chaplin.

“Over the next two or three years, the likelihood of byelections occurring is fairly high, historically. And government, generally… don’t do well in byelections historically,” he noted.

What could happen if the Liberals do get a majority?

There are lots of possible scenarios, but a near certainty is they will move a motion to change the standing orders guiding committee composition to give themselves a majority there as well.

There also a possibility that the Liberals try to amend other

“Standing Orders”

of the House to either set time limits on certain debates or limit the number of dilatory motions that can be tabled, though either move would be controversial.

“Even in a majority government situation, lots of things are open to negotiation by the parties, because everybody has the role to play in the Commons,” Skinner said. “Having an agreement on a solution is generally more preferable than trying to put something through.”

What about prorogation if the Liberals get a majority?

It’s certainly a possibility! It could be appealing to a new majority government to want to hit the Parliamentary “reset button” and start a new session with a fresh throne speech.

But, Skinner and Chaplin warn, there are also significant risks that come with prorogation.

The first is that all existing government bills would die with no guarantee that the Liberals will be able to vote them back to their current stage in a new session. That includes the Liberals’ Budget Implementation Act for the 2025 budget.

The second is that the government would automatically face a confidence vote following the new throne speech, something it may not be eager to do with a razor-thin majority.

“There’s lots of risk in prorogation,” Chaplain said. “If you’re only one vote one way or another, the risk to confidence is probably too high. Why would you create a scenario where you’re constantly testing the confidence of the House?”

National Post

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OTTAWA — If emotions over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his comments about coveting Canada as a “51st state” defined the posture of political leaders towards the cross-border relationship in 2025, business leaders are urging that cool heads prevail in the new year.

With Canada set to begin formal talks with the U.S. over its trilateral agreement with Mexico in January, National Post asked different leaders in business and labour about their hopes for how Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government approaches the deal’s joint review and what lessons elected officials could learn from the past year.

What emerged was a message of pragmatism.

“We’ve had the year of elbows up,” said Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada.

“When you do that in a hockey game, you end up in the penalty box. It’s far more important in 2026 that we, you know, win face-offs, put shots on the net, and put pucks in the net. That’s what’s going to be more important.”

Following a year where national pride surged in the face of Trump’s tariffs, Canadians have heard a lifetime’s worth of hockey analogies from political leaders as they describe their approach to the U.S.

That includes from Carney himself.

The avowed hockey fan prime minister turned to the national sport back in August when explaining why he was dropping a suite of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods covered by the trade agreement, despite winning the spring election campaign on an “elbows up” message, which meant hitting back hard against the U.S in the face of tariffs.

Carney suggested that the time for throwing elbows was over in favour of maneuvering the metaphorical puck into the metaphorical net to score the not-so-metaphorical goal of landing a deal with Trump that would see tariffs on steel and aluminum lowered, if not altogether removed.

Six months later, he has yet to put a win on the board, suggesting Canadians instead cheer for the fact that a majority of goods enjoy exemptions under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, putting Canada in one of the best positions compared to other U.S. trading partners.

Dealing with those tariffs will now form part of the government’s efforts when it comes to working with the U.S. on the first review of the trade agreement, negotiated during Trump’s first term in office.

Unifor national president Lana Payne said the fact that Canada is still dealing with sectoral tariffs means it was starting those talks “slightly on our back heels.”

At the same time, with U.S. inflation and unemployment rising as the American economy deals with the impact of the president’s tariffs, Payne says Canada can use that to its “advantage” in bargaining with the U.S.

“All of these things are helpful to us.”

While Carney may also feel that time is on his side, Hyder said the opposite is true for business.

“What we have said to them is, one of the things you need to remember is, it may be your friend politically, but it’s not our friend from a business perspective.”

One risk, according to Hyder, is that 2026 ends without a joint review having been completed, which only fuels uncertainty the longer its extension sits unresolved.

The business council president said leaders should also not count on what lessons were learned from negotiating with Trump on the current agreement and apply it this time around, given how much more aggressive his administration is on enacting his trade agenda.

Matthew Holmes, executive vice-president and chief of public policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, cautioned against thinking that suggests Canada should look to milestones like the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, scheduled for next November, when it comes to its strategic approach to the trade talks.

“We shouldn’t be ragging the puck, so to speak,” he said.

Given the U.S. signalling it plans to focus on issues like Canada’s supply-managed dairy sector as part of the joint review, as well as digital policies like the Online Streaming Act, Payne said it will be important for Canada to be “very clear about our own red lines.”

In her mind, Trump’s negotiating strategy over the past year can be summed up as, “the more you give, the more he wants.”

As for the question of whether it was time to move on from the “elbows up” attitude in 2026, Holmes at the chamber said it was complicated, as Carney finds himself in a difficult spot, given how the prime minister must reflect what Canadians feel.

Canada was one of only two countries that retaliated against Trump’s tariffs, the other being China. Data also shows that Canadians remain strongly opposed to the U.S., given how many opted against vacationing south of the border.

Holmes says it has nevertheless been important to see Canada adjust its position.

“That’s what personally I want to see from elected government,” he said. “I don’t want to see, you know, a calcified version of an election campaign for four years.”

“We’re seeing a government that is careful, that is listening both to its domestic population but also to the situation around it, that it needs to be able to be somewhat nuanced and fluid.”

In terms of advice for the new year, Holmes said it remains crucial to take the president at his word versus argue “facts or logic with what are kind of the … visceral vibes of the American electorate.”

“Don’t brush them off.”

Making the case for the Canada-U.S. trade relationship directly to leaders’ American counterparts is a must, according to Laura Dawson, director of the Future Borders Coalition, which advocates for the cross-border relationship and includes members like major Canadian airlines and airports.

She said Canadian leaders ought to do so by coming armed with specifics and precise data points.

“The Americans have consistently, historically, been surprised by how well prepared Canadians have been on technical issues,” said Dawson.

She said Canada’s trade negotiators are very skilled, but that the “missing piece” remains “continuous communication and consultation with Canadian businesses who are involved in integrated supply chains.”

Dawson said they are hearing from members looking for more “technical engagement” from the government.

At the political level, she says, business sent a message to Ottawa this year that, as it sought to diversify its market access in response to Trump’s tariffs, while some were in a position to shift away from the U.S., many businesses were not, given the depth of integration between Canada-U.S. supply chains.

“The message that business is giving to the government, the Canadian government, is be practical, be pragmatic.”

Dawson also said trade policy is “much more politicized” at the White House, which has a very specific agenda when it comes to remaking global trade. She believes the message from the Trump administration to Canada is, “‘You’re either on board or you’re not, but we are going to go ahead.’”

Payne said the federal government must also bring sectors together to ensure that Canada enters trade talks with a unified front.

As the trade war dragged on, Carney faced more fractured calls from premiers looking for support and action against the U.S. in advocating for their different industries, from softwood lumber, autos, and canola products, the latter dealing with tariffs from China.

“We need a very, very strong Team Canada approach in 2026.”

National Post

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Prime Minister Mark Carney will be in Halifax today to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the Ukrainian president makes his way to peace talks with U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday.

The prime minister’s office confirmed the meeting, as did Zelenskyy, who told reporters on his plane that the pair will hold a video call with European leaders, according to

Bloomberg

.

As reported by

AFP

, the leaders will “go through all the issues, provide updates, and exchange details” of the U.S.-backed peace plan to end Russia’s nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine.

He again stressed the country’s need for legally binding security guarantees from allied nations to bring hostilities to an end.

The meeting follows a phone call about the peace talks between the two leaders on Boxing Day, during which Carney commended Zelenskyy’s continuing peace efforts and the courage of the Ukrainian people, according to

the prime minister’s office.

“As Ukrainians face another winter of Russian aggression, I reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to Ukraine, and the need to maintain pressure on Russia to negotiate,” Carney wrote on X.

This morning, I spoke with President @ZelenskyyUA about ongoing efforts to secure a just and lasting peace.

As Ukrainians face another winter of Russian aggression, I reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to Ukraine, and the need to maintain pressure on Russia to negotiate.

— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) December 26, 2025

Zelenskyy’s North American trip also comes just as Russia sent a series of strikes on Kyiv and the Ukrainian energy grid overnight on Saturday.

One person is confirmed dead, at least 30 were injured and hundreds of thousands are without power after more than 500 drones and 40 missiles — including hypersonic weapons — were launched, as reported by Bloomberg and AFP.

In a post on Telegram, the Russian defence ministry said its strikes “targeted energy infrastructure used by Ukraine’s armed forces as well as defence industry facilities.”

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OTTAWA — Canada’s largest public-sector union blasted the top government department as “hypocritical” for refusing to say how many of its employees received notice of a potential layoff weeks ago.

The silence from the Privy Council Office (PCO) signals the government may not be forthcoming with public information as

the majority of federal departments and agencies

prepare to announce major layoffs in January.

PCO is the department that serves the Prime Minister’s Office and oversees the rest of the federal public service.

In early December, PCO was the first federal department to notify employees who were at risk of losing their job as part of the Carney government’s decision to cut the public service by roughly 40,000 people by 2028-2029.

Affected employees were sent “workforce adjustment” letters that said they were either being cut or were at risk of losing their job.

How many of PCO’s 1,208 employees received a letter? The top federal department refuses to say despite the fact that all impacted workers have already been notified.

“As the workforce adjustment process is underway, and out of respect for affected employees, we will not comment further at this time,” spokesperson Pierre Cuguen replied this week to repeated questions about the exact number of employees who received a “workforce adjustment” letter.

“Every effort will be made, through mechanisms including alternation and early retirement, to minimize layoffs,” he continued, adding that PCO is going about the process “compassionately, fairly and in line with Canada’s obligations as an employer.”

In a statement Friday, the head of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) — the largest federal public-sector union that represents hundreds of PCO workers — blasted the department for its opacity.

“It’s concerning and frankly hypocritical that the Privy Council Office refuses to be transparent about the cuts to its own workforce,” said PSAC national president Sharon DeSousa.

“PCO is the architect of many of the austerity policies that have led to sweeping public-service cuts, and they have a responsibility to share the impacts of their decisions with workers and the millions of people in Canada who depend on public services,” she added.

In fact, one person recently

launched a shared document on an online forum

in which public servants can input information received from their departments and agencies about the number of positions affected by the cutbacks.

“In an effort to keep track of, contextualize, minimize disinformation about, and put in perspective the ongoing workforce adjustment situation, I thought it might be helpful to collect all of this information in one place,” wrote the unidentified poster.

The document suggests 230 PCO employees received a letter telling them their job would be affected by the cuts. That’s nearly 20 per cent of the department’s 1,208 employees,

according to 2025 government data.

Annie Yeo, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE), said that the union is bracing for program and service cuts due to the layoffs.

“

Even when one simply adds up the numbers available from unions or workers sharing data on the internet, what’s not clear, and what CAPE would like transparency on, is what programs and services will be affected by all these cuts across all these departments for ordinary Canadians,” Yeo asked in a statement Friday.

Unions such as PSAC have frequently shared updates

on how many of their members have received workforce adjustment letters since the process began after the federal government tabled Budget 2025 on Nov. 4.

Earlier this month, Natural Resources Canada confirmed that it had sent letters to 700 employees as part of the process to cut more than 400 jobs by 2029.

The government also said it sent early retirement offers to nearly 68,000 public servants in recent weeks.

The cuts come as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government embarks on the most significant reform of the public service in decades in an attempt to streamline services and “right-size” a bureaucracy that has grown by over 100,000 in the past decade.

Between 2015 and 2025, the number of federal public servants swelled to 358,000 from 257,000, according to government data.

In the fall budget, the government said it would achieve the cuts through attrition, voluntary departures, early retirements and layoffs.

The budget also confirmed sweeping 15 per cent spending cuts over three years for most federal organizations outside of the departments of public safety and national defence.

National Post

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Although a ban on boiling live lobsters is set to come to the U.K., a Canadian fisherman says similar legislation will never pass in Canada.

“Live boiling is not an acceptable killing method,” the new guidance unveiled Monday by the U.K. government’s

Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

(DEFRA) states. Alternative practice suggests stunning before boiling lobster; among the measures that countries like Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland have adopted.

The new policy follows a

2022 U.K. law

 that said invertebrates like lobster, crabs and lobsters were sentient and felt pain like other animals.

But Jonathan Lamade-Fuentes, fisherman and co-owner for Moby Nick Fishing Charter in Mississauga, Ont., told National Post that the practice is justified as the food is prepared fresh.

Fuentes’ said legislation similar to the U.K.’s will never pass in Canada “and there is no point in Canada discussing this.” He added, “I do not see an issue (with boiling live lobster), eating seafood fresh has been what has been happening for the last thousands of years.”

Meanwhile in the U.K., Crustacean Compassion advocated since 2016 for DEFRA to act on putting regulation on inhumane methods of cooking animals. The push by the non-profit group resulted in 4,000 actions, in the form of emails and postcards, being sent to DEFRA in 2025.

“Boiling animals alive is a cruel practice that has no place today. Scientific evidence clearly shows animals like crabs and lobsters can feel pain,” ambassador Wendy Turner Webster said in a Crustacean Compassion press release. “Yet they remain unprotected under legalization and the suffering continues, unchecked. We’re urging the government to act swiftly to end this needless cruelty.”

A

YouGov poll

conducted in February 2025 commissioned by Crustacean Compassion found 65 per cent of British adults oppose the live boiling of crabs and lobster, up from 51 per cent in a similar 2021 survey.

Despite government backing, there has been opposition towards the regulations by the U.K.’s shellfish industry.

David Jarrad, CEO of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain

told Daily Mail

Tuesday that the regulatory measures will add costs to shellfish businesses. He also believes restaurants and hotels will just import frozen seafood from abroad instead of paying £3,500 (approx. $6,640 CAD) for stunning equipment.

Richard Wilkins, owner of fine dining restaurant 104 Restaurant in Notting Hill, London, U.K., questions if these regulations are really necessary.

“If you’re a big restaurant doing lobsters and you’re required to do something extra, it could create more of a staff cost,” Richard Wilkins told the Daily Mail.

Wilkins is also critical towards how the government is going to enforce this measure, saying banning this practice is pointless without enforcement.

“How do you police something like that? Is Keir Starmer(the U.K. Prime Minister) coming in in his chef’s whites to keep an eye on things?” Wilkins said to the Daily Mail. “The wider issue is whether we should be legislating on everything. It’s probably the most inane part of the strategy — if we’re just banning it without enforcement, that’s kind of pointless, isn’t it?”

James Chiavarini, owner of two restaurants in West London, U.K., said that this move takes away from traditional methods and suggested that smaller restaurants will be opposed to investing in stunning equipment due to already stressful financial pressures of owning a restaurant.

“Like any restaurant that’s struggling to make ends meet is going to spend £3,500 electrocuting lobsters,” Chiavarini told the Daily Mail. “We’re all in a hunter-gatherer mindset — we know things have to die for us to eat. That’s the natural world. If you take the view that we’re all part of that, why are we singling out lobsters?”

Chiavarini said that if animal welfare regulation was really serious they would look at the way chickens are raised to be used in fast food restaurants, instead of just singling out lobsters.

“People know what’s responsible and what isn’t. It doesn’t have to be brought in as legislation,” said Chiavarini. “The government just brought it in to make them look like the good guys.”

Debate began in Canada following Switzerland’s decision to regulate boiling live lobsters in February 2018.

Animal lawyer and professor at the University of Toronto, Leslie Bisgould told

CBC in 2018

, that there is not a more horrifying act than taking a live animal and boiling them alive in your kitchen.

“Why wouldn’t we apply the precautionary principle? Why wouldn’t we choose our actions that we know don’t cause harm rather than actions that might?” Bisgould said, suggesting we should err on the side of caution.

The Lobster Council of Canada says

that Canada holds more than half of the world’s supply in hard-shelled Atlantic lobsters.

Between 2017 to 2019, lobster landings make up nearly 100,000 tonnes per year and are valued at $1.5-billion, according to

Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Lobster boils have been a popular tradition for families and restaurants in the Maritime provinces. They also serve as a major tourist attraction for visitors, promoted through advertisements by Maritime provinces’ tourism boards.

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