Liberals One Seat From Majority, Freedom Convoy Files Erased, Digital ID | Blendr Report EP144
A single defection reshaped Parliament after the ballots were counted. Elsewhere, accountability thins as records disappear and new systems are tested without public consent.
This week’s episode of The Blendr Report looks at three stories that seem separate on the surface but point in the same direction beneath it: how power in Canada is being consolidated without public consent, and often without public notice.
The first is the floor-crossing of Conservative MP Michael Ma. His decision to join Mark Carney’s Liberals pushed the government to within a single seat of a House of Commons majority. Floor crossing is legal. That is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether this system truly allows Canadians to elect their representatives or if their vote is merely symbolic.
Ma won his riding as a Conservative. Voters did not elect a Liberal government through that seat. Yet one decision, made after ballots were counted, reshaped the balance of Parliament. A minority government is meant to constrain the executive. It forces compromise and keeps legislation slow and contested. A near-majority does the opposite.
That concern deepens when context is added. Ma’s riding has long been flagged in reporting on foreign interference, particularly linked to the Chinese Communist Party. There is no proven evidence that Ma’s decision was directed or coerced. But there is enough history in that region to justify scrutiny. When one defection can tip the entire country toward majority rule, questions are not paranoia. They are prudence.
The second story revisits the Freedom Convoy and the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act. The courts have already ruled that the invocation was unconstitutional. What has emerged since is just as troubling: the destruction of records tied to that decision.
Documents show convoy-related briefings inside the Privy Council Office were labelled “transitory,” meaning disposable, despite being linked to the first peacetime use of a wartime law. At the same time, federal officials were contacting major technology platforms—Facebook, Google, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Microsoft—urging them to remove convoy-linked content quickly.
The third story looks forward rather than backward. Access to Information records show Ottawa quietly revisiting a national digital ID. Not through legislation. Not through Parliament. But through administrative research and survey design.
Immigration officials explored turning the Canadian passport into a domestic digital ID. Instead of public debate, a new question was slipped into the 2024 Passport Client Experience Survey asking Canadians how comfortable they would be using a digital passport as identification inside Canada. MPs were not informed. Senators were not consulted. The Privacy Commissioner was not briefed. When journalists noticed, the minister’s office declined to comment.
Convenience tested well. That was predictable. Convenience always does. But convenience has never been the real objection. Cost, privacy erosion, centralization of power, and future misuse remain unanswered. Systems should not be judged by what governments say they will do with them today, but by what they make possible tomorrow.
Each of these stories stands on its own. Together, they reveal a pattern: power gained through quiet moves rather than open consent, oversight weakened after the fact, and major policy shifts tested without democratic debate.
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