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You better get used to the idea that Mark Carney will soon be leading a Liberal majority government.

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Carney called three byelections on Sunday – two in Toronto and one in the Montreal area – and if his party wins all three of them, the Liberals will have majority control in the House of Commons.

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Why the Liberals could sweep upcoming byelections

Thanks to a couple of advantages the Liberals have that their opponents do not, it’s very likely they sweep all three.

The two Toronto ridings are quite safe with the Liberals winning Scarborough Southwest in all but two elections since 1980 and in recent years the Liberals have received more than 50% of the vote. In University–Rosedale, Chrystia Freeland easily won this riding last April with 64% of the vote, which is a pretty good sign the Liberals will hold it.

The Terrebonne riding, which sits just north of Montreal, is more difficult for the Liberals to attain, but they are still likely to win.

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Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste defeated Bloc Quebecois candidate and then sitting MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagne by one vote. A woman who said that she had voted for the Bloc Quebecois via a mail-in ballot came forward two weeks after the election saying her ballot had been returned to her because Elections Canada had printed the wrong address on the mail-in package.

The court challenge to Auguste’s victory ended up in the Supreme Court, which ordered a new election last month.

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Money, manpower give Liberals advantage over Bloc

You know that the Bloc Quebecois is going to work hard to take back the riding that the party had held for years. The Liberals, though, have a strong appetite to secure that majority government and they also will have the benefit of spending more money and attracting more volunteers.

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The byelection takes place on April 13, just days after thousands of Liberals descend on Montreal for their party’s convention. Many of those delegates will take time to go door-knocking and campaigning for Auguste while in town and some may even arrive early to help with advance voting the weekend before or stay until Monday to help get out the vote on election day.

Then there is the money advantage.

How national campaign spending helps Liberals

Each candidate in a byelection gets a certain spending cap. In the byelection last summer in Alberta’s Battle River–Crowfoot riding, the candidate limit was $163,276.

Each party represented by a candidate in that byelection could also spend $110,147.

The money the parties are spending, though, doesn’t need to be spent in each of the designated ridings being contested. It is considered a national campaign spending limit and with the Liberals running candidates in all three ridings and the Bloc running in just one, the Liberals have the advantage.

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Liberals likely to allocate most resources

Fred Delorey, a longtime Conservative political operative who has held senior roles in many campaigns and managed Erin O’Toole’s 2021 campaign, wrote about this advantage recently on Substack.

“In practice, the Liberals have little need to allocate resources to the two safe Toronto contests and can concentrate virtually all of its allowable national spending in Terrebonne,” DeLorey wrote.

“The Bloc Quebecois cannot do the same. Because it runs candidates only in Quebec, its ‘national’ spending limit is effectively tied to a single riding — unless it makes the unusual decision to field candidates outside Quebec solely to expand its cap.”

To put this in practical terms, the Liberals will likely be able to spend $330,000 on these three byelections and concentrate almost all of it in Terrebonne. The Bloc will be limited to about $110,000.

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Terrebonne could still prevent Liberal majority

Money isn’t everything in an election, but it matters.

There are many twists and turns that could happen to see the Bloc Quebecois win in Terrebonne. People who normally support the Conservatives or the NDP could throw their support behind the Bloc to block a Liberal majority.

They could also just stay home, as most voters do in byelections.

People who vote with their money are betting on a Liberal victory. Users of Polymarket, the cryptocurrency-based prediction market, say there is a 71% chance of Carney getting a majority by June 30, up from an 18% chance just a few weeks ago.

On April 13, chances are that Carney will secure his majority. It may be a slim one, but it will still be a majority.

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