The Liberals are planning to introduce a motion in the House of Commons to use their new majority to change the composition of committees, Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon said on Tuesday.

In a post on X, he said it was acting to reflect the “undeniable, long-standing principle in Parliament” that a party that has the “majority of seats in the House also has a majority in committees.”

READ MORE: Liberals appear poised to rework committees after securing majority

The move was widely expected after the Liberals secured a majority in last week’s byelections in Ontario and Quebec. It’s unclear how quickly the motion would move through the House, though it’s expected the Liberals will need to use time allocation to speed up debate.

The draft motion — shared by MacKinnon on social media — would increase the number of members on committees where Liberal MPs act as chairs to 12, with seven of those seats reserved for Liberals. For those committees in which an opposition is the chair, membership would be fixed at 10, with Liberal MPs to take up five seats.

The chair doesn’t vote unless there’s a tie. This proposed composition would give the Liberals an effective majority on every committee.

The move was needed because a motion passed at the start of the Parliament last spring that evenly split membership on committees between the governing Liberals and the opposition Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois. This allows the opposition parties to team up to vote down the government as committee chairs don’t vote unless there’s a tie and most committee chairs are assigned to the government.

“Our government is committed to working hard on an ambitious agenda to build Canada strong,” MacKinnon said in a post.

“Prime Minister Mark Carney and his government are determined to work constructively both in the House and in parliamentary committees.”

MacKinnon didn’t outline when he would introduce the motion but said would happen in “the coming days.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney has attempted to make the argument that the House has been dysfunctional, and last week, he criticized “performative” debates at committee that he blamed for slowing down legislation.

He specifically cited debate at the justice committee over the government’s anti-hate bill as an egregious example, noting that in one case an MP “read into the record their love of cats and dogs.”

“There’s a difference between real testimony, real substance, getting to issues, debating aspects of law, advancing — that’s the job of parliamentarians — and showboating,” he said.

Carney was referring to comments made by Conservative MP Andrew Lawton, who was voicing his opposition to an amendment to Bill C-9 that would remove the religious exemption for the hate speech crime.

He was attempting to make the point that without free speech, Canadians would be limited to debating their preferred pets.

Conservative MPs said the government was attempting to rework committees to silence the voice of the opposition.

More to come…