By Lori Turnbull

September 17, 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney is undeniably a political rockstar, both at home and abroad. He’s been running the country like an economic guru all summer long, making deals left and right, hosting our first Canada Investment Summit, and pursuing new partnerships around the globe.

In his latest plurilateral tour de force, this week’s next-level Canada-EU relationship reveal, Carney as Canada is as much the woo-ee as the wooer amid a global re-branding brought to you by Donald Trump and the prime minister defying both his economic aggression and his unwanted annexation advances.

But now Parliament is returning and Carney, not one to make parliamentary attendance a priority, cannot ignore the parliamentary politics of his job.

And, at a time when the federal political battlefield is complicated by a Quebec election on October 5th followed by an Alberta referendum on October 19th — either or both of which could catalyze independence narratives — the domestic stakes for Carney are as high as the international ones.

In addition to the suite of bills on deck to be debated in the House of Commons this fall, he will need to bring at least some of his plans and projects before Parliament for debate and decision including, by his own reckoning, any path to further integration with the European Union.

Right now, his majority in the House is slim but intact. Six upcoming by-elections will give him the chance both to make it bigger and to add even more strength to his political momentum. He will be strategic about their timing to maximize the Liberals’ chances for success.

Since Parliament broke for the summer back in June, it’s been a whirlwind of major announcements, with all eyes on Carney all the time. He gives the appearance of a CEO who gets things done by making deals, which surely helps him to build his trust relationship with voters who are looking for action and results.

Carney’s economic and financial credentials and technocratic style also contrast sharply with Donald Trump’s shambolic, corrupt approach to agreements, treaties and negotiations of all kinds, still somehow rationalized by the business tactics described in The Art of the Deal, 40 years after its publication.

The “deals” Carney announced over the summer ranged from the defence procurement submarine deal with Germany’s TKMS in July to the precedent-setting $10 billion package between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador on renewable energy in August. These are in addition to the parade of trade and security agreements and Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships signed with an array of countries from Japan to India to Mexico to, last week, Ukraine, and a whole list of others.

But none of those heightened alliances have compared to the scope or import of Carney’s evolution of Canada’s bilateral relationship with the European Union.

His speech Thursday to the European Parliament about the pursuit of a more extensive partnership between Canada and the European Union, which followed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s invitation to Canada on Wednesday for EU “associate membership”, was, in many ways, a sequel to Davos.

Abacus Data has found that 80% of Canadians support closer integration with the EU on key issues like defence and the economy, but support for full membership sits at 49%.

His approval ratings are consistently high and there is no one anywhere close to him, including beleaguered Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who seems trapped between the rock of what happened the last time he hounded a Liberal leader from office and the hard place of having to compete with Carney’s popularity and global profile.

Carney’s decision to have Canada walk away from trade talks with the United States in August has the support of the vast majority of Canadians. He’s popular in every region of the country and is eating into the support base that the Conservatives typically rely on. In fact, Carney is so popular that if an election were held today, 338Canada predicts that the Liberals would win well over 200 seats.

While Carney’s popularity with Canadians and rattled world leaders is self-evident, in Parliament, the playing field is more more combative.

At a time when the federal political battlefield is complicated by a Quebec election on October 5th followed by an Alberta referendum on October 19th — either or both of which could catalyze independence narratives — the domestic stakes for Carney are as high as the international ones.

The Liberals will enter the House of Commons on Monday, September 21st with 173 seats, including the House Speaker Francis Scarpaleggia, who votes only to break a tie; the threshold for a majority is 172. While a majority is a majority and is always much better than the alternative for the government, margins this tight can be tricky, especially given the stakes these days.

However, there are currently five and soon-to-be-six vacancies in the House, which will mean that the government’s 172 will be met by the total opposition parties’ seat count of 165 (164 when Conservative MP Larry Brock makes his resignation official).

So, by the sheer numbers as they stand now, the Liberals are in no danger of losing either key votes in the fall or control of parliamentary committees. Prime Minister Carney will be very strategic — as he’s been in the past — about when to call those by-elections so that he protects his majority while trying to make it bigger.

There are several key pieces of legislation expected to be taken up by the House, including the First Nations Clean Water Act and the Lawful Access Act, either or both of which could cause headaches for the government as there will be stakeholder pushback on both.

Then, of course, there is the fall budget, which will likely put more meat on the bones of any plans the government has by way of measures to help people and businesses through the tariff crisis.

The Conservatives and the New Democrats will clamour to position themselves as the defenders of workers and families during this time. Prime Minister Carney has said that any enhanced partnership with the EU would be debated in Parliament and subject to a final vote there, but chances are that’s at least a year away if not longer.

The six vacant seats represent opportunities for several chances for pick-ups for the Liberals. They are likely to hold onto Scarborough North following the resignation of Liberal MP Shaun Chen. They’ll be looking to swipe Brantford-Brant South-Six Nations from the Conservatives while Yorkton-Melville in Saskatchewan might prove too steep a climb.

It’s a Conservative stronghold; Cathy Wagantall won with almost 69% of the popular vote in 2025 and since the 25-year run of NDP MP Lorne Nystrom ended in 1993, conservative candidates have clobbered their opponents.

The real strategic play for Carney is going to be how to time the next three by-elections in Quebec. They’ll be looking to keep Laurier-Sainte Marie, formerly held by Steven Guilbeault, and pick up Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot-Acton from the Bloc Québécois and Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie from the NDP following the departure of Alexandre Boulerice.

Carney will likely break up the by-election calls into two groups to prevent having to run three by-elections in Quebec at once. This will limit the amount of money that the Bloc Quebecois can spend at once, which increases the Liberals’ chances of victory in two Quebec ridings in particular. Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot-Acton has long been in Bloc hands and Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie was Bloc before it was NDP. The Liberals will have their work cut out.

The Liberals’ summer by-election winning streak was widely interpreted as a huge vote of confidence in Carney. While another clean sweep might not be realistic, given the predominance of other parties in some of these ridings over the years, it will be vital for Carney to keep his momentum going by putting up as many wins as possible.

Wins in a majority of the by-elections would strengthen the Liberal majority and solidify Carney’s political power even further.

Dr. Lori Turnbull is a professor in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University.