Ontario Premier Doug Ford is throwing his weight behind the idea of a federal Liberal majority government, calling political certainty the need of the hour as Canada navigates an increasingly tense trade relationship with the United States.
Speaking to the Toronto Star from Texas, where he was on a trade mission, Ford made his position clear: if the Liberals win the three upcoming byelections on April 13, that outcome would be good for the country. “A magical word in both countries is everyone wants certainty. Everyone wants to move forward,” he said.
The Liberals under Prime Minister Mark Carney are tantalizingly close to flipping their strong minority into a majority. The party has been quietly engineering that shift for months picking up defectors from the Tories and the NDP, while losing ground through ministerial departures and a court-ordered electoral do-over in Terrebonne, Quebec. The math heading into Sunday’s byelections is tight but favourable: two wins would cross the majority threshold, and both Toronto ridings are widely considered safe Liberal territory.
Terrebonne is the real battleground. A hard-fought contest against the Bloc Québécois, a win there would give Carney the cushion to govern without needing the House speaker to break tied votes.
Ford’s warm words for the federal Liberals are notable, coming from a premier who has built his brand on conservative politics. He did not shy away from the irony himself. Recounting his first meeting with Carney in March 2025, Ford recalled the prime minister’s opening line with evident amusement: “The first words out of his mouth were, ‘I’m more conservative than you.’ And I said: ‘Well, that sounds good.'”
The two leaders have developed a working relationship that is, by most measures, functional punctuated by the occasional spat. Ford’s decision to run anti-tariff ads in the United States last fall effectively torpedoed trade talks with Washington at a critical moment, drawing a pointed rebuke from Carney. More recently, Ford was openly frustrated when Ottawa allowed up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into Canada at a preferential tariff rate without consulting Queen’s Park a move Ford argued threatened Ontario’s auto sector jobs.
Yet none of that has permanently soured things. The two men shared a stage on March 30 to announce an $8.8 billion joint housing initiative aimed at cutting development charges and accelerating construction. The mood was light enough that Ford joked, after eyeing the water glass on the podium: “This isn’t going to turn me into a Liberal, is it? I’ve already been accused of being a Liberal.”
Ford’s endorsement of stability if not the Liberals outright reflects a broader shift in the political climate. With the continental free trade agreement up for review and Donald Trump’s tariff threats hanging over the Canadian economy, both federal and provincial leaders appear to have quietly decided that internal bickering is a luxury they cannot afford.
Ford himself won a third consecutive majority government after calling a snap election last winter, framing the vote as a mandate to stand firm against American trade pressure. He seems to see a parallel logic applying federally now.
Whether Carney emerges from April 13 with a majority or not, the willingness of Ontario’s Conservative premier to publicly wish him success says something about just how much the political calculus in Canada has changed.
