Canadians want floor-crossing MPs to face ‘immediate’ byelections: poll – National

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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