OTTAWA — New Toronto-area Conservative MP Michael Ma has crossed the floor to the Liberals in a stunning political move just hours after the end of the fall Parliamentary session.
Ma’s floor crossing was announced via statement sent by the Liberal Party Thursday afternoon.
“After listening carefully to the people of Markham–Unionville in recent weeks and reflecting with my family on the direction of our country, I have informed the Speaker and the Leader of the Opposition that I will be joining Prime Minister Mark Carney in the government caucus,” Ma said in a statement.
Ma’s crossing brings the minority Liberal government within one seat of forming a majority. It also deals a major blow to Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s leadership just one month before he faces a leadership review.
Ma’s move was met with shock and surprise by his former Conservative colleagues,
with one source describing it as coming “out of nowhere.”
If Ma had been pondering the move for a while, he covered his tracks well.
Just the day before his crossing, Ma attended the Conservatives’ Christmas party, posing for a photo with Poilievre and his wife, Anaida, and hitting the dance floor.
The day before, he voted twice with his former caucus on a Conservative motion on pipeline construction.
Earlier in the month, he delivered multiple speeches lambasting the Liberals’ 2025 budget, going so far as calling the Liberals “team feudalism”.
“While over two million Canadians visit food banks each month and 700,000 of those are kids, the Liberals work every day to inflate asset prices, whether through deficit spending or by letting any warm body pass into the country to keep those rents sky-high,”
he said on Dec. 2 in what would
be his final speech in the House of Commons as a Conservative.
Nine days later, he said in his statement that he was joining the Liberals because Prime Minister Mark Carney’s priorities aligned with his and those of his constituents in
Markham–Unionville.
“
That includes making life more affordable, growing a strong Canadian economy, strengthening community safety, and creating real opportunities for young people and families who are working hard to build their Canadian dream
,” he wrote.
Ma was not well known within Conservative party circles before running in the last election. He narrowly captured the riding for the Conservatives from the Liberals by winning nearly 51 per cent of the vote, as compared to 47 per cent.
Ma recently appeared alongside fellow Conservative MPs Garnett Genuis and Chak Au, at an event in Vancouver, according to photos Genuis shared on Facebook, to speak to members of the Chinese community.
Ma was appointed to run under the Conservative banner back in March, the same day Carney called the spring election
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