Majority (62%) of Canadians Say Floor Crossing Should Not Be Allowed

A majority (62%) of Canadians believe that MPs should not be allowed to switch political parties after being elected to the House of Commons, according to a new Ipsos poll for Global News. Moreover, if it were to happen in their district, most (69%) would want an immediate by-election.  Only 41% agree that they'd be comfortable with their own MP switching to a different party, led by those aged 18-34 (47%), those in Saskatchewan and Manitoba (54%) and Liberal voters (53%).

Despite frowning on it, nearly two in three (64%) believe enough MPs could switch parties to grant PM Mark Carney a majority government, which would effectively guarantee no election for the next few years. 
 

Just under four in ten Canadians say they are now more approving of PM Carney following MPs Matt Jeneroux, Michael Ma, and Chris d’Entremont  switching parties to join the Liberals. One-quarter say the are now less approving of PM Carney following these switches. By contrast, 23% say they are more approving of Pierre Poilievre, with 34% saying they are now less approving. Notably, about four in ten Canadians remained unaffected by these party changes. Carney continues to enjoy a strong supporter base, with 70% of  Liberal voters saying they are now more approving of the Liberal leader, compared to 45% of Conservatives who are more approving of Pierre Poilievre (and 15% of Conservatives who are now less approving).

 

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.

For more information on this news release, please contact:
Darrell Bricker, PhD
CEO, Ipsos Global Public Affairs
+1 416 324 2001A
[email protected]

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