A majority of Canadians say members of Parliament should not be allowed to cross the floor to another party and should face an “immediate” byelection if they do so, a new poll suggests.

However, Wednesday’s Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News found Canadians’ displeasure with floor-crossing MPs has not hurt the overall approval for Prime Minister Mark Carney or his Liberal government.

In fact, those approval numbers have gone up since last year, with over one-third of Canadians saying they are even more supportive of Carney after three MPs left the Conservatives to join the Liberals in recent months.

“They’re prepared to punish the individuals who do it (cross the floor), but not necessarily prepared to hold it against the leaders of the parties that promote it,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs.

“And it has not created a stronger desire for an election.”

The poll was conducted late last month, after Alberta MP Matt Jeneroux became the latest Conservative to cross the floor of the House of Commons — bringing Carney’s Liberals even closer to a majority government.

4:00
Could Liberals gain majority without going to polls?

Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont became the first to abandon the Official Opposition in November, followed a month later by Ontario MP Michael Ma.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has accused all three of his former caucus members of betraying their voters, noting they ran under the Conservative banner in last spring’s federal election.

The Ipsos poll found 62 per cent of Canadians surveyed believe MPs should not be allowed to switch parties after an election, while nearly 70 per cent said crossing the floor should trigger an immediate byelection in the MP’s district.

Get daily National news

Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.

Roughly a quarter of respondents agreed strongly with both statements.

Just 41 per cent said they were comfortable with their own MP switching parties, with only 10 per cent strongly agreeing. The numbers were higher among Liberal voters and Canadians aged 18 to 34.

Despite that disapproval, 64 per cent said it is likely that enough MPs will end up switching to the Liberals in order to give Carney a majority government.

Asked if the three recent floor-crossings make them more or less approving of Carney, 37 per cent of Canadians said they were more approving and 23 per cent were less approving.

Those numbers flipped when the same question was posed about Poilievre, while around 40 per cent said their opinion had not changed for either leader.

3:18
Where does Edmonton MP’s defection to Liberals leave Conservatives, Poilievre?

Ipsos found both Carney and the Liberals are continuing to enjoy broad support, with the party widening its lead over the Conservatives to eight points.

Forty-four per cent of Canadians surveyed said they would vote for the Liberals if an election were held tomorrow, up four points from December, while the Conservatives fell one point to 36 per cent.

Just eight per cent said they would choose the NDP, down one point, while the 31 per cent support the Bloc Québécois would garner in Quebec translated to seven per cent nationally, down two points. The Green Party was up one point to three per cent.

Among the party leaders, Carney was the only one to see more approval than disapproval among those surveyed, with 58 per cent voicing support and 33 per cent against. The approval number is up 10 points from when Ipsos polled Canadians during the federal election campaign.

“The honeymoon continues,” Bricker said. “In fact, it gets sweeter every day.”

Nearly half of Canadians disapprove of Poilievre, meanwhile, which is seven points more than those who approve of the Conservative leader. However, his 41 per cent approval is up six points from last year.

All other federal party leaders saw more Canadians voice disapproval than approval in the Ipsos poll. That includes NDP interim leader Don Davies, whose party is set to choose a new permanent leader at its convention in Winnipeg later this month.

Canadians remain split over whether they want to return to the ballot box this year, but the poll suggests they are souring on the idea: 37 per cent said they want another federal election, down three points since December.

Those who don’t want another election this year shot up six points to 44 per cent, while 19 per cent said they don’t know.

Two-thirds of Conservative voters said they want a new election, while a plurality of younger voters and men were more likely to say the same.

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between February 25 and 26, 2026, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,001 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

There is currently no parliamentary budget officer scrutinizing federal finances in Ottawa as the interim fiscal watchdog’s term expired Monday without a successor in place.

The PBO is an independent agent of Parliament tasked with analyzing federal budgets, spending proposals and election campaign promises to raise the quality of public debate.

With no budget officer installed, the office itself cannot publish any reports or accept new work requests from parliamentarians.

The budget office will continue to work on existing requests while waiting for a new officer to be named.

Interim PBO Jason Jacques was appointed to a six-month term in September that ended at 5 p.m. ET Monday.

Ottawa opened applications for a new permanent PBO in November and last week a Privy Council Office spokesman said information about the appointment of a permanent budget officer would be “made available in due course.”

The appointment of a permanent budget officer to a seven-year term is decided by cabinet and must be approved by Parliament.

Get weekly money news

Get expert insights, Q&A on markets, housing, inflation, and personal finance information delivered to you every Saturday.

Interim PBOs, like Jacques, can be appointed without parliamentary sign-off for six-month terms.

3:04
2025 budget leaves ‘little room’ for future risks, watchdog finds

The federal government’s “persistent delays” in appointing new fiscal watchdogs were highlighted as a shortcoming in an otherwise glowing review of Canada’s parliamentary budget office published last week by the Organization for Economic Co operation and Development.

Jacques argued at the House of Commons standing committee on government operations and estimates Thursday that it would benefit Ottawa to shift the watchdog’s mandate from the budget officer to the office itself to help with continuity between mandates.

Bloc Québécois MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau told the same committee in French that the federal government’s failure to date to name a replacement PBO is “unacceptable” with Jacques’ term coming to a close.

Jacques’ tenure heading up the budget office started with a bang in September as he criticized the Liberal government’s fiscal track as “unsustainable.”

Later, when Liberals tabled their 2025 federal budget, Jacques said Ottawa’s debt path was broadly sustainable in the long term but argued the feds had used up some of their ability to absorb future fiscal shocks.

He also pushed for a new independent body to clarify definitions of capital spending under the Liberals’ new budget framework.

&copy 2026 The Canadian Press

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says a trade deal between Canada and India would be “a real positive” for both the nation and the province.

Moe’s comments Wednesday come ahead of his trip with Prime Minister Mark Carney on a trade mission to Mumbai and New Delhi.

Carney’s office said Tuesday that he will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss ways to expand their trading relationship.

Moe said Saskatchewan “has been waiting some time” for Canada to sign trade agreements with a nation like India.

“Those discussions were occurring a number of years ago, and they were put on pause for a number of years,” he said.

“I’m thankful to see that’s even part of the discussion as we go there, and I’m hopeful that should we be able to get back to the table and start to work out the opportunities for that more broad-based trade agreement, that’s a real positive for Saskatchewan and Canada.”

2:12
How Carney’s travel compares to other Canadian prime ministers

Last year, India imposed a 30 per cent tariff on Canadian yellow peas, dealing a major blow to Saskatchewan’s agriculture industry.

Get breaking National news

For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.

The province has urged Ottawa to immediately negotiate with India to alleviate pressures.

Earlier this year, Moe joined Carney on a trade mission to China. Both countries agreed to see Beijing reduce tariffs on Canadian canola products in exchange for Ottawa lowering duties on Chinese electric vehicles.

NDP Leader Carla Beck said Tuesday that she hopes Carney and Moe can come back with a deal.

“Get the tariffs off of peas,” she said.

“I also hope that while he has time to be sitting with the prime minister, that we see some big announcements in this province about infrastructure.”

The trip comes ahead of the Saskatchewan spring legislative sitting, which is to start next week.

— with files from The Canadian Press

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

The outlook for Canada’s provinces is difficult to chart but some surprising resilience to U.S. trade pressures and historical revisions to economic data have most provinces on better footing heading into the 2026 budget season, argues a new analysis from Desjardins.

Randall Bartlett, deputy chief economist at Desjardins and one of the authors of the report published Tuesday, said a number of developments since even the provinces’ fall fiscal updates have shown what a fraught time it is for economists and policymakers alike.

“It is a much more difficult time to be doing forecasting for any economy, really,” he said.

British Columbia kicks off provincial budget season on Tuesday with Alberta on deck next week and other provinces expected to follow with their own fiscal updates in the coming months. The federal government shifted to a fall budget schedule last year, which it justified in part as a way to give provinces more clarity on Ottawa’s spending plans in advance.

Bartlett said at this time last year, the outlook for the provincial economies was “much worse than it is today” as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened waves of tariffs and Canada stared down an uncertain future.

Sharp tariffs have materialized on some sectors, weighing heavily on Ontario steel and automaking and Quebec’s aluminum industry, for example. But thanks to an exemption for goods compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement on trade, Trump’s blanket tariffs on Canada have not had as much of an impact on the economy as first feared, Bartlett said.

Also giving provincial economies a lift are recent historical revisions to gross domestic product published by Statistics Canada in November. Those updates, based on new information received by StatCan from the pandemic recovery era, raised previous estimates of GDP in 2022 and 2023 across the board.

2:15
Province keeps advisors amid budget crunch

Bartlett said the revisions helped to assuage some concerns about stagnating per capita GDP and productivity growth and put the provinces on better footing than first expected entering the trade war.

“Overall, the provinces, I think, economically have fared better than we had previously expected in our last provincial outlook,” he said.

Get daily National news

Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.

How a better-than-expected 2025 will set up the 2026 budgets will vary province to province as new risks have materialized since the fall.

Trade tensions with the United States are expected to reach a tipping point this year with the scheduled review of CUSMA now underway.

Central Canada remains most exposed to Trump’s tariffs, Bartlett said, highlighted by the U.S. president’s recent attempts to target Quebec’s aerospace industry. But he said British Columbia, Saskatchewan and most Atlantic provinces are better positioned with diversified trade portfolios.

Many of these provinces could see dividends from the federal government’s renewed diplomacy with China, which is expected to reduce tariffs on canola — a big boost for Saskatchewan in particular. Increased trade could also see increased exports head overseas from B.C. ports.

Reduced Chinese tariffs on seafood and peas should also improve the respective outlooks for the Maritime provinces and Manitoba, Bartlett said.

2:19
Ontario consumers could see higher alcohol prices in the new year

Regime change in Venezuela could threaten the fiscal picture of oil-producing provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador, Desjardins argued. Canadian producers could get less for their product if more heavy oil from Venezuela eventually makes its way up the U.S. Gulf Coast, the report said, which risks delaying investment in domestic production and lowering GDP in future years.

“That leads to reduced profitability for energy companies, which can lead to reduced production, reduced employment and also reduced revenues for the provincial government,” Bartlett said.

Despite the risks to Alberta, Bartlett noted the Wild Rose province comes into 2026 with perhaps the cleanest fiscal positions among the other provinces as it implements cost-cutting measures.

“I think there is an opportunity to find further savings for Alberta and ultimately position themselves well for when we get hopefully a more certain and less volatile regime for global energy prices,” he said.

Bartlett said each of the provinces took a different approach this time a year ago when accounting for the possible impact of Trump tariffs on their fiscal paths.

Despite the ongoing trade headwinds, Bartlett said Ontario and Quebec in particular baked a strong degree of “prudence” into their budgets last year and should see relatively rosier fiscal outlooks by comparison when they offer their updates in the coming weeks.

“We’re expecting some (provinces) to have underperformed or overperformed their Budget 2025 numbers when budget season’s over. But ultimately we’ll probably come around pretty close to where the budget numbers were in 2025, with the exception of maybe Alberta and some of the other energy producing provinces,” he said.

&copy 2026 The Canadian Press