So much for the drama.

The Liberals have recruited another Conservative MP to cross the floor, all but ensuring the party will emerge from the April 13 byelections with a two-seat majority.

Sarnia’s Marilyn Gladu is joining the Liberals, the party announced on Wednesday, less than 24 hours before the Liberal convention in Montreal kicks off.

If the Liberals — as expected — hold onto to long-time party strongholds University-Rosedale and Scarborough Southwest in Monday’s votes, the Liberals will have 173 seats in the House.

That’s one more than the 172 needed for a majority. But it’s crucial as it means the Liberals won’t need to rely on the speaker to break ties.

The speaker is a Liberal MP, but only votes in the case of a tie, which could create a challenging situation when it comes to using time allocation or other measures that limit debate to speed up passage of legislation.

It could also complicate efforts to pass a motion to reconfigure committees. Right now, the Liberals can be outvoted by Bloc Quebecois and Conservative MPs. But the Liberals could use their newfound majority to change the composition of committees to give themselves a majority on each one.

But that brings us to our next question — how stable of a majority are we looking at here?

As our very own Kady O’Malley has noted in the past, a majority isn’t a magic power in the Commons. The Liberals need to have enough votes to pass their bills and motions, and to stave off non-confidence pushes.

Having a majority, in theory, makes that relatively easy. But the reality is that at least one or two MPs are often absent on most votes in the House.

If the Liberals win all three byelections on April 13, the party would have 174 seats. That gives them some added cushion, but if two or three MPs no-show — which is not out of the question — that could mean trouble.

Then again, it’s a bit less riskier than in the past, thanks to the adoption of electronic voting.

Still, we’re expecting a few Liberal MPs to step aside.

There’s been buzz for awhile about B.C. MP Jonathan Wilkinson’s departure, purportedly to accept a diplomatic appointment. The word on the street that it would be as an ambassador to the European Union.

Liberal sources told iPolitics last week that it appears that will happen sometime before or just after the end of the spring sitting.

iPolitics is granting the sources anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Wilkinson has held a Vancouver area seat in the House since 2015, and was a key cabinet member during Justin Trudeau’s time in office, most notably serving as natural resources and energy minister.

His departure would lead to a byelection, temporarily dropping the Liberals’ seat count. Wilkinson won his seat with nearly 60 per cent of the vote last April.

There could also soon be a byelection in Beaches-East York.

Incumbent Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith said he’s planning on leaving federal politics to run for the leadership of the Ontario Liberals.

Erskine-Smith is running for the nomination of the provincial party in the yet-to-be called byelection in Scarborough Southwest. That riding was held by New Democrat Doly Begum until she resigned earlier this year to run for the Liberals in the federal Scarborough Southwest byelection.

Erskine-Smith said he’ll resign his federal seat once Ontario Premier Doug Ford calls the provincial byelection.

It’s unclear if the Liberals will easily hold Beaches-East York.

A recent poll showed that new NDP Leader Avi Lewis would have a good shot at winning the seat.

The Mainstreet Research survey has Lewis running under the NDP banner winning the support of 42.6 per cent of leaning and decided respondents in the Toronto riding, compared to 39.5 per cent for a generic Liberal candidate.

The Conservatives had 13.7 per cent of support, while the Greens were a distant fourth with 2 per cent, tied with the other party option.

The poll was conducted prior to Lewis winning the NDP leadership last month.

Alternately, with Wilkinson’s Vancouver-area seat also on track for a potential byelection, Lewis might decide to make a third attempt at winning a riding on the West Coast after failing to secure a win in Vancouver Centre in 2025, where he placed a distant third behind longtime Liberal incumbent Hedy Fry and Conservative hopeful Elaine Allan.

iPolitics will have liveblog coverage of the byelections on April 13.