At Issue - Is Pierre Poilievre’s leadership in trouble?

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Questions surface about Pierre Poilievre’s leadership after one Conservative MP crosses the floor and another resigns. Prime Minister Mark Carney looks for the votes to support his federal budget. And Canada’s plan to slash immigration levels.  Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. At issue tonight, Pierre Paulyev's leadership, a conservative MP from Alberta says he will resign his seat, and another crosses the floor to join the government. I wasn't feeling that I was aligned with the ideals of what the leader of the opposition had been talking about. Hi there, I'm Rosemary Barton for a second time this week. At issue is back, and this is the podcast edition.

for Thursday, November 6th. This week, we are asking, what do these conservative changes, resignations, floor crossing say about Pierre Paulyev's leadership? Plus, will the liberals get the support they need to pass the budget? So what does this latest resignation mean for Pierre Paulyov's leadership? Does the leader still have a handle

on his own caucus? I'm Rosemary Barton here to break it down tonight. Chantelle Baer, Andrew Coyne, and Althea Raj. So we have the floor crossing by Chris Dantramont that happened on Tuesday Tuesday when we last spoke, joining the government. And now Matt Jenneru is resigning his seat entirely, saying that this wasn't an easy decision, but it is the right one. The effect is, he's not leaving caucus, but he's leaving his seat. The effect is that Pierre Poilev has now has two people who have left, regardless of the timing. Chantal, what do you make of it? Well, that this is not the week that Pierre Poileve wanted to have, that instead

of being on the attack on the budget, he is in such crisis mode that he actually forgot to add the usual official opposition motion to strike down the budget, which tells you a lot about what's happening inside, which is chaos. What I'm told is it's very toxic in there. Yesterday, the name of this MP who just resigned was going around as someone who was thinking of crossing the floor, there is plenty of indications that he was under intense pressure to not cross the floor. This is the answer. If you're a leader of the official opposition on budget week and a minority government, then you lose two MPs one way or the other. It doesn't bode well for your leadership. Yeah, Althea, what are you hearing? Because it definitely raises

questions about what the leader is doing with caucus, how involved he is. in keeping people happy and on side? Well, since the rumors first started of potential floor crossers, he has been working the phones. But I would say he does not have good and warm relations. He has not fostered collegial relations with his caucus in the same way that some people speak about Brian Mulroney, for example. And so when there is a crisis, there's no goodwill built in there.

And that has been a problem that we have seen a week. I don't believe that Christ Antriman wanted to cross the floor in the way that happened on Tuesday. I think he was forced to do so because of a political story that emerged earlier than he had expected. And from what I understand from several sources, Mr. Jenner was planning on crossing to the liberals. And multiple sources, conservative sources, tell me that he was threat. by his own whip, and that, I haven't spoken to him directly, so I won't go in the details, but I believe that instead of crossing the floor, he just basically said, fine, if this is the way you want to deal with it, then I will resign my seat. Some conservatives believe that

the liberals will win that by-election whenever it is called. It certainly is a good week for Mark Carney. To Chantès's point, what does it mean? I mean, Mr. Dantremon left and said, basically, it's because of Pierre Polyev's toxic leadership. And I don't see the values that I believe in reflected in, at least the leadership's tone in the party. Mr. Jenner, aside from saying that he wants to spend more time with his family, doesn't really tell us why he is leaving. So we don't know yet why he is leaving. I'm sure at some point he will tell us.

But what does it mean for Pierre Polyev's leadership review in January? What does it mean for the rest of the caucus? if the story is emerging about the pressure that you're under by the leadership team, how does that build and foster a team approach? You now have very aggressive tone. You're leading through fear. And it's hard to lead through fear when you're, frankly, the leader of the official opposition. You know, like, there aren't that many carrots, but how do you sustain this?

And there's a lot of unhappy people, and I was going to say, dispirited looking faces. in that caucus? I'll leave my colleagues to handle the inside dope. I'll just say I'm more struck by the public reactions, which I think are symptomatic of what's going wrong here. The reaction to Chris Dantramal moving over was, who needs him? He's a red Tory.

We don't need that kind in our party. That is all too symptomatic of the attitudes of the people around Pierre Pauier, that there's a very narrow construction of what's an acceptable conservative. I'm somebody who's always thought the conservatives need to establish more distance between themselves and the liberals and take a more concrete and substantive and substantively conservative stands. But I also think any party that has any chance of winning has to be a big tent. And if you're focused on who you can exclude from the tent rather than who you can bring into it, you're going to lead yourself to a lot of trouble. Look at the frosty relations he has

with the governments of conservative governments in Ontario, Nova Scotia, because there's personalities involved as well in ambitions, but also audiological differences. Look at some of the bizarre candidate shows where they froze out Mike De Jong and B.C. from running. They need to have a much more broad outlook,

but I think also the thing, when you look at Pierre Puyev's comportment, he seems to be reacting as if he was still 25 points ahead in the polls and as if the Reform Act provisions had not been adopted by his caucus where he can be removed

if they so choose. So, you know, we can talk about the January review of the party at large, but is he going to make it to the January review? Yeah, I mean, I think the problem is they want to be talking about the budget, and they say to media, why aren't you talking about the budget? We will talk about the budget in the next block. But if you can't, if you yourself can't keep the party talking about the budget, you know, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing.

I have to respond to what's unfolding. and it is a certain amount of distress and drama in that caucus right now, Chantelle. But if you really want to talk about the budget, your leader doesn't forget to bring in the usual official opposition amendment about refusing to endorse the budget, which is exactly what happened yesterday. And I'm with Andrew on this. The more you exclude people, the less likely that you should be the leader leading that caucus in. the next election. And I believe that over the past three weeks, we've seen bad week over comments on the RCMP and Justin Trudeau, and then bad week and then bad week, which basically sends the message to conservatives that no, Pierre Puellev is not good at pivoting. And he is

what he is, if that's what you want to lead you in the next election. He's only 20 points behind Mark Carney is best prime minister. So, so, like, what does he, what do you think he's going to do, Althea? What, what will they do to try and stop the bleeding for now? Well, some people around him have suggested he needs to build bridges, and that means taking out his MPs and kind of being the nice Pierre Puellev and the trying to win them with carrots and not trying to keep them with sticks. I think the bigger problem, frankly, is the one that Andrew has identified.

The first response to Christont-Tremont-Ré leaving were MP saying that he was an idiot, that the party was better off without him, and that there was some party emissaries went on TV and suggested that there is no room for red Tories in that party anymore. And there is, frankly, a lot of MPs who would see themselves more on the progressives, conservative side of the party in that caucus. And do they feel like they have a home? Or do they feel like they can't do anything and that they have to, like, you know, one thing that we forget about often is how much power the leader has over the MPs. He can refuse to sign your nomination papers and therefore you're a candidate and end your career. So there is a lot of power that's yielded. And sometimes you're unwilling to walk. and be a liberal, but you just want changes within your own party. And now if you feel like the weight of the world is coming down on you, you know, do you decide to walk away like Mr. Jennerud do?

Or do you decide, and we've talked about this before, but will more people just decide that they don't want to deal with this leadership and sit as independence on their own? Yeah. I mean, I, you know, in our experience, I think we know that sometimes these things take on a momentum that become difficult to stop, Andrew? I think the other problem is that the definition of red Tory is getting elasticized. I think Mike Wilson would be considered a red to some of these people because he was focused on deficit reduction in free markets and free trade and tax reform, whereas there's a sort of a faction, I might say an ascendant faction within the party, where it's all about culture.

It's all about fighting the culture wars and anybody else is just a sort of an old-fashioned, out of touch, you know, Reagan, Thatcher, conservative. Again, if they're going to be drawing lines even narrowly within crunchy, robustly conservative people, then it just gets narrower and narrower. Last word to you, Chantelle. I'm looking at this from the other angle, and at this rate, with MPs going back to their writings and families next week and away from the supervision of this leadership.

team that apparently puts knives on troats of people who are thinking about where they belong. I can see a day when Mark Carney has a majority of the without going through an election. Okay, we're going to leave it there. We'll let Althea get a drink water. And when we come back, we will look at how the budgets are trying to entice the opposition to support the budget. At issue tonight, opposition support for the budget. The budget, the Liberals need to find two votes, but so far are meeting resistance from other parties. There's nothing for Quebecers in there, absolutely nothing. We have a lot of serious concerns about this budget as we look into it in more detail, a lot of questions.

Now is the time to reach out to those in opposition parties who could vote for the budget. So will the liberals get the support they need to pass the budget? Is there anything in there that could convince some of the parties to support it or abstain even? Let's bring everyone back. Chantal, Andrew, and Althea. Let's put aside the floor crosser and the person who's, the conservative MP who's quit and whatever else might happen in the next few weeks. Althea, I'll start with you. Yeah, or hours. Yeah, we'll see whether this stands up.

Are there things in the budget targeted or not that seem to try to appeal to parties and MPs from particular regions that could make them support or at least not stand in the way of the budget passing? There are a lot of reasons for the oppositions to say that they will support this budget. There are a lot of reasons for the opposition to say that they will not support this budget. On the big ticket items, for example, that the Bleu Kibiquet outlined, their six demands, they are not reflected in this budget. But if you look, for example, at the Blur-Kibiquet MP for Gaspizi Magdalene Islands, there are three projects for his writing listed in this budget, including revamping the airport

on the Magdalene Islands. There is a lot of reasons why Mr. Deshain might want this budget to pass, even if he doesn't actually want to vote for it. And that's the pickle they all find themselves in. They actually want this budget to pass, but they don't want to vote for it. The NDP has been quite open about some of the projects that they, like in the budget. Gore Johns on Vancouver Island has talked about this new fleet of fire bombers to fight forest fires, the Climate Corps, the youth program. That was an NDP suggestion that the liberals put in the budget.

There's a Filipino Fino Pino Community Center in Vancouver, and your Don Davies riding he's excited about. And they've basically said, we're going to go back to our writings and see what our constituents want us to do? Do they want us to support this budget? Or, you know, the labor movement is saying, no, you absolutely cannot. You have to defend these 40,000 positions, and you have to vote against this. So there are a lot of goodies, but is it enough? I don't know. Shantelle, you went in there. Not for a second. Do I imagine the MP for Gaspi, Magdalene Islands, voting for this budget or abstaining on the budget because of a local project.

that's just not happening. Even in airport? They're going to bring all their members and they will vote against the budget. One down. I don't know how many conservatives will be left when the budget vote comes. And that does matter

because in the end, if you don't have enough members on the opposition sides to bring down the government, you can vote. But I expect all MPs who are still conservative to show up vote against the budget. The MDP is another kettle of fish, but the problem that the

NDP has is a number of them are on the record for saying they don't want to abstain. Some of them. And abstaining would be the easy way out, right? Because then you're not voting for it. And I'm not convinced that those seven MPs can talk themselves into supporting the budget. Yeah, it doesn't sound like they're all going to go the same way either, frankly. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of splits happening inside that little party right now. Andrew, what do you think? Yeah, well, the NDP is not going to vote for an election. That's the last thing they want.

They're not even a caucus anymore, certainly not an official caucus, and as you're discussing, there's no cohesion there anymore. They're all trying to save their own skins. So in that context, a little sweetener in the form of this or that inducement in their riding, probably is not going to be amiss to them. It's pretty sorted stuff. We're seeing the Saatch is being made pretty publicly out in the open here. I mean, another way to describe it as this is basically vote buying.

It's classic liberal clientalism. You create captive constituencies across the country by spending money on every, you know, organization, person, corporation, or whatever. There's, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies in that, well, not more than 100 billion. That's put that way of subsidies in that budget. And, you know, you can use that to get people to be more likely to vote for you at the voter level, but it can also be used to induce MPs who are wavering on the edge of a decision to lean your way, or at least to abstain. It's not particularly pretty, but that's the situation we're in.

Yep, Althea and then Chantal quickly, though. I think it's more about actually, if there is an election, to wave and say, you see this MP for Gaspe, he voted against all these great projects. I think it's actually more about that. And when you look at the list of projects, it's a pretty interesting list. I will say, because we haven't mentioned her, Elizabeth May is actually still in active negotiations because she wants to see the budget amendment to reduce this fossil fuel subsidy for the LNG sector. And so she didn't have anything in there, but she is one of the few is actually trying to amend the thing.

She's trying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 30 seconds, Chantelle. we're having this conversation based on the notion that the liberals absolutely want to survive. Like a Paul Martin situation, they would actually want to rewrite the budget for us a bit. I'm not convinced.

Okay. I think they are staring down the opposition parties and basically saying, you want to defeat us? Well, you know, be our guest. I'm not saying they want an election. I think what they want is a majority, but I don't think they're going to bend over. backwards to please anyone. Yeah, a double dog dare does not mean you want the election, but I agree it's a double dog dare.

Okay, we're going to leave it there. Thank you. That was a good conversation on both. We're going to take a short break here. When we come back, we'll talk about cuts to immigration levels, also contained in the budget, what this says about Canadians' perspectives on the issue and how it might change the economy as well. That's next.

Mr. Speaker, we are taking back. control over the immigration system and putting Canada on a trajectory to bring immigration back to sustainable levels, allowing us to fulfill the promise of Canada to those who call it home. Our plan will restore control, will provide clarity and consistency to the immigration system while maintaining compassion in our choices and driving competitiveness in our economy. So do these changes reflect a changing perspective from Canadians on immigration. Could they help the labor market or, of course, housing problems too? Let's bring everyone back. Chantal, Andrew, and Althea. So there was already

moves to curtail immigration numbers under the previous government. This is really changing the targets, particularly for temporary arrivals, international students, migrants, that kind of thing. Andrew, do you think that they hit the right mark here for a country that is aging rapidly and still wants to try and grow the economy? Well, first of all, I'm struck by this language of we're taking back control of immigration. Taking you back control from whom? Fair. That's fair.

Yeah. Look, it is quite the about face. I think there's a real risk of overdoing it. You know, it's not just that they're cutting back on the temporary immigration. They're also saying that people who are already here as temporary immigrants are going to get first dibs on the permanent resident status, which means there'll be fewer people coming into the country, which means we're probably looking at an absolute decline in population this year and probably next, which would be the first time in our history.

Now, look, we can have whatever level of immigration we choose, and it's not like the economy will collapse if we have lower immigration than we do now, any more than the economy will collapse at higher levels of immigration. But I think for a country founded an immigration, for a country that sees itself as a growing, dynamic, country, a country with the future that it looks forward to, it's not a particularly apatizing image to me to be shrinking in population, particularly if we're taking the longer view and if we're thinking about our place in the world. I mean, quite apart from the economy and the benefits of

economies of scale and that sort of thing, we're in a very dangerous world where size is going to count, your population, your GDP, if we're going to have to be much more dependent on ourselves and less on other countries, we should be thinking in the long. longer term while growing the population, not shrinking it. Chantal? Call me a purist, but I don't understand why the Minister of Finance of all people is making lofty statements about immigration levels. Don't we have an immigration minister?

And if you took the issue seriously, why is it part of the budget? And how can you have a real conversation? When you make it part of a make or break, you're going to bring down the government if you want to discuss this issue. So I understand the temptation to pack all kinds of stuff in the budget. I believe that immigration targets, and for all the points that Andrew made, it deserved better treatment than to be part of the one thing

that Justin Trudeau left to Mark Carney that he kept inflated language about whatever the liberals are doing. I mean, I understood it as though they were trying to link immigration to the economy and affordability questions. Bill, can we have a real conversation about the immigration policy? Totally agree. Yeah, totally agree. Althea. I don't know that the current minister is capable of engaging Canadians in a discussion about immigration at this point.

So I think that's possibly one of the comms reason why you'd want to put it in the budget. In the same way, although for different reasons, probably don't want to have a complete discussion on the new environment climate policy that is in this budget because you probably don't want to draw attention to the fact that you're doing a lot less than you promised that you would do and that is also aggravating some members of your caucus. But that being said, I think what this budget shows us

is that the conservatives have won the PR war on immigration. When you are now hearing liberals talk about GDP per capita, that is a recognition that all the arguments that the conservators put forward over the last two years have resonated with voters. And the liberals are polling a lot and they are seeing that people are very upset with immigration and it is something that they fail to see in the lead up to the last election and it probably cost them a few seats. So yes, I think to Andrew's point, they are overcorrecting and it's going to lead to other problems down the line. Like the universities are going to come out kicking and screaming and saying that they have to make a whole bunch of cuts because now there's

when to fund all these programs. But how long is this, you know, is this a temporary reprieve or is this a real policy shift? I don't know. It's definitely drastic change from the Trudeau era. Last quick word, Andrew. Yep. Just a very quick glass half full way of looking at it is we're now tightening, the measure of tightening immigration is to cut it to about 1% of the population.

That would have been regarded as loose not so long ago. So we're still basically pro-immigration in this country, just not as right. rapidly as we were in the past. Okay. Good, good thoughts, everyone. Thank you all. That is at issue for this week. What do you think about Pierre Paulyev's leadership after this latest news? Do you expect the Liberals will be able to pass this budget? Let us know. You can send us an email at ask at cbc.ca. We will be back in your podcast feeds next week. Thanks for listening. slash podcasts.