Good morning. Three by-election wins last night delivered Mark Carney’s Liberals a majority government – more on that below, along with Ontario’s big changes to its school boards and Donald Trump’s beef with the Pope. But first:

• Iran trolls Trump on social media after he launches his own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz
• As Ontario overhauls its MAID oversight committee, critics say it’s to remove dissenters
• The U.S. and Iran begin a battle of economic endurance in the Strait of Hormuz

Eleven months, 16 days, five floor-crossers and three by-elections after the previous federal contest, Prime Minister Mark Carney secured his coveted majority government last night.

As expected, the Liberals handily won both races in Toronto: Danielle Martin, a family doctor and health care advocate, held onto the University-Rosedale seat left vacant by Chrystia Freeland, while Doly Begum, the former deputy leader of the Ontario New Democrats, took over Bill Blair’s old seat in Scarborough Southwest. The party completed the sweep in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne, a rematch between Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste and Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné of the Bloc Québécois. (Auguste won the seat by a single ballot last year, but the Supreme Court annulled that outcome.) The results give the Liberals 174 seats in Parliament – no need to tap the Speaker of the House to break a tie.

So: now what? To figure out what a majority government buys Carney – and what it doesn’t – I spoke with Stephanie Levitz, a senior reporter in The Globe’s Ottawa bureau.

What changes today for the Liberals?

Their peace of mind. This isn’t a cakewalk: It’s not a strong majority, in terms of numbers, and it will require keeping a close eye on who’s in the House, who’s available for voting, which MPs are going to run again. But it does bring insurance that allows the Liberals to move things along faster.

Like what?

The stuff that gets stuck in Parliament tends to get stuck in committees. Under a minority, opposition MPs narrowly outnumber the Liberals on a committee, and they can work together to hold up the agenda of the government. Once the by-election results are confirmed and the new MPs are sworn in, the Liberals will redo the composition of those committees so they have the majority position. There’s a crime bill, C-16, that’s a priority piece of legislation to move along – it’s a Criminal Code overhaul that tackles online safety for kids, domestic violence and femicide, and mandatory minimum prison sentences.

Carney hasn’t been totally stymied by a minority: He got his big defence budget passed, along with his bill to fast-track major projects. But that’s long-game stuff. Has he connected the dots between these ambitions and Canadians’ daily lives?

I don’t think he has. Right now, Carney is benefiting from the sense among Canadians that we need to protect our own national interests. If you draw a parallel to the best story going lately, which is the Artemis mission, we want the government to shoot for the moon. But Artemis ultimately came back home – and for Canadians, that’s where the political narrative will go, as well. They’ll watch the government circle the moon, and then they’ll start saying, “Okay, but what does this mean for me?”

There’s a cost-of-living crisis. Prices are rising at the gas pump. Those gas prices will trickle through the supply chain and create a bunch of new pressures on Canadian pocketbooks. Carney benefits from an understanding that much of what’s happening is beyond his control, and no one really knows what Donald Trump will do next. But the government has to address these economic challenges.

Maybe he’ll lay out some tangible solutions in the spring economic update coming soon?

It wouldn’t surprise me. In Carney’s speech to the convention this weekend, he hammered this idea of “Canada for all.” That language isn’t necessarily new, but what struck me – and what I understand to have been deliberate – is the repeated emphasis on the second part of that sentence. Before, it was: Build Canada strong. Maybe he’d add “for all.” Now, it’s: Build Canada strong – FOR ALL! The emphasis is on making sure everybody benefits from economic growth.

Even with their majority, the Liberals are still courting potential floor-crossers from the Conservatives and the NDP. Is there a risk that this tent is getting too big to be ideologically coherent?

As Carney brings in social conservatives and left-wing New Democrats, I think people are holding that up against Justin Trudeau’s definition of a Liberal. But historically, the Liberals have always been a much broader coalition. They’ve had people in that caucus who were very opposed to abortion. They’ve had people against same-sex marriage. The trick now for Carney is getting MPs with different viewpoints to keep toeing the line.

In his convention speech, he recommitted support for LGBTQ rights and a woman’s right to choose. But he also used another line, which I suspect we’re going to hear a lot: “Unity isn’t uniformity.” It’s yet another instance where Carney can be seen as closer to Stephen Harper than to Trudeau. Harper’s caucus had a wide range of opinions on social issues, and he kept that big blue tent together. He made sure people could express their views while not getting in the way of the government agenda. I’m sure Carney will take a page from Harper’s successful management of his very diverse caucus.

Pierre Poilievre hasn’t been as successful with his Conservative caucus. Is this majority bad news for an opposition leader whose MPs helped deliver it – or does it buy him time to regroup?

It’s both. Losing four of your members of Parliament is not a good look. When Chris d’Entremont crossed the floor in November, Poilievre was just starting to try to soften his tone and broaden his appeal. In the months since, he’s spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in party money travelling the world, doing every interview under the sun and launching a massive new ad campaign. It’s not moving the needle. And in the meantime, he lost another MP last week.

A majority government means he can take a beat. I’ll go back to the Artemis metaphor: The Conservative mindset is that Carney’s rocket-ship-high popularity will eventually come back to Earth. That Canadians will see their cost of living is still steep, or their kid still can’t afford a house, and they’ll sour on the guy. I have no doubt that grassroots Conservatives will give Poilievre a lot of string for that to happen. But some degree of the establishment believe he’ll never be prime minister – they think he was a man for the moment, the moment has shifted and he won’t get it back. So how much time will they give Poilievre as leader? Well, as of right now, there’s no one else.