Front Burner - Floor-crosser defects to surging Liberals

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberals welcomed a third Conservative floor crosser on Wednesday – Edmonton MP Matt Jeneroux.  And with three by-elections coming up, two from Liberal strongholds, a Liberal majority is looking like a possibility. So a pretty seismic day on Parliament Hill.  CBC’s senior writer Aaron Wherry is here to talk through how this could all play out for the Liberals and for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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From CBC's personally, this is Creation Myth. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hey everyone, it's Jamie. Mark Carney and the Liberals have added one more MP to their ranks with a conservative floor crosser on Wednesday, Edmonton MP Matt Jennerum. If they keep two ridings and win back a third in upcoming by-elections, they will have their majority. So it is, so it was a pretty big day on Parliament Hill. If they keep two ridings and win back a third in upcoming by-elections, they will have their majority.

So it was a pretty big day on Parliament Hill. Aaron Wary is here to talk through how this could all play out for the Liberals, but also importantly for Pierre Pollyev and the Conservatives. So let's get straight to it. Erin, hi. Hey, Jamie. Another very eventful day. Yeah, another quiet day in Ottawa.

Yeah. You and I are talking at 3 p.m. One more floor crosser for the liberals. As I just mentioned, Matt Jenneru's name is probably pretty familiar to some people listening. People actually thought he was going across in the fall, right? But he didn't, and he said he was going to resign and step away from politics this spring. And then he pretty much went kind of AWOL after that, right? Yeah, he released the statement back in November that said he was going to resign.

It wasn't clear exactly when the spring was sort of floated as a possibility. Not giving a direct reason for his resignation, but saying he ran in the last election hopeful that Canadians would put faith in a team led by Pierre Pahliev's conservatives and added he wanted desperately to play a role in that vision. He then goes on to say he has confidence in all those elected on both sides of the aisle, and he hopes for another chance to address the House of Commons, but for the moment, his focus will be on his family. We do know that he had met with Mark Carney at some point before he announced he was going to resign. His name would come up in the speculation about potential conservative floor crossers that there was this sort of rush of speculation in the fall after Pierre Polly have made some,

I guess you could say, controversial comments. about the RCMP and Justin Trudeau's government. If the RCMP had been doing its job and not covering up for him, then he would have been criminally charged. The leadership of the RCMP is frankly just despicable when it comes to enforcing laws against the liberal government. And Matt Jenner, his name had come up in those discussions, but after he put that statement out announcing that he was going to resign,

that seemed to kind of be the end of it. There'd been a subsequent statement that said there was no coercion involved in his decision to resign. But he wasn't much of a presence on Parliament Hill, regardless of whether he had or had not resigned, it seemed for all intents and purposes that he was kind of out of the picture at that point. And I guess until this morning. How are you, Matt? Thanks for coming. Always great to be in Emmetton and city of champions here.

So let's talk about how he got here that, deciding to not resign and then to actually cross the floor to the liberals. Carney actually flew to Edmonton on Wednesday for a previously unadvertised trip to the province. And he welcomed Jenneru to the party with open arms. He seemed pretty happy. And both men spoke a bit. This is a great day. Great day for Hamilton, great day for Alberta and for Canada. and thank you very much for joining the team

had a fruitful time for the city, the province, and the country. So I had announced my resignation back in November, largely due to family reasons, but quite simply couldn't sit on the sidelines after seeing what the Prime Minister was an ambitious agenda he was undertaking across the country and across the world. And just what kind of insights did we gain from information that came out through the day?

So we know a couple things. First, we know that Matt Jennerer told Pierre Pahlia, the conservative leader and the conservative leadership, about a minute before Mark Carney's statement came up. So this was a pretty neat sudden announcement. In his comments with Mark Carney and Edmonton, Genru pointed to a couple things. first, you know, he pointed to the Davos speech that Mark Carney had given as a kind of crystallizing moment for him. That's where a lot of the world changed. I think it opened a lot of eyes for Canadians, Albertans, and Vatonians, just how serious this nationally Canadian crisis truly is. And it's, for me, it felt disingenuine and quite simply wrong to be sitting on the sidelines

anymore. So I reached out to the Prime Minister's office and we'll be joining his, his conference. and I think it couldn't be more uprogram. Mark Carney has specified or has kind of emphasized this idea that it's time for people to come together. So I think they're sort of fitting into that narrative of, you know, conservatives crossing the floor to work with the liberals because that fits with this moment in Canadian history. We don't know a ton yet, though, about what exactly transpired between November and now so far as, you know, what discussions may have happened behind closed doors. I suspect we'll find out more about that in the next couple days. Yeah, I saw Melanie Jolie scrumming earlier in the day. You know, she did say that as she understood it,

there had been kind of these ongoing conversations. Well, I know there were a number of conversations in recent weeks, but the decision was up to MP Genereau, and I'm glad he made the right decision. Genaroo actually mentioned that he reached out to them, right, kind of after the Davos speech, which I thought was kind of, of an interesting tidbit. And we'll get to Polyev more in a bit, but I just, I felt like maybe it's worth noting here.

Jeneru also released a statement this morning. And just when I was parsing through it, it did strike me that he didn't take any kind of direct swipes at Polyev, right? It was really much like his comments during the press are all about, you know, why he wanted to go to the liberals. And that's like not what we heard, really, from Nova Scotia MP Chris Dantramal, who crossed the floor to the liberals in the fall. He talked about essentially how he didn't like Pollyav's negative approach to politics. Yeah, D'Ondtramal was quite strong on that, particularly in subsequent interviews talking about. Quite honestly, a lot of times I felt it was part of a frat house rather than a serious political party. It wasn't about keeping government to account.

It wasn't about trying to do the best for your constituents. it was about tearing down. You know, even Michael Mall when he left in December, I believe he, you know, talked, there was sort of an oblique reference to this not being the time for division. Instead of being deepening division of the country, I believe that we are better served when we are with the governing party to be able to help voice our decisions

and support the constituents in a much better. So it is interesting that Mad Gener didn't make a kind of explicit statement about Pierre Poliev, you know, I can only really speculate about why that might be. I mean, he has praised Polyev in the past. So it might be particularly hard for him to criticize Polyev now. I think we'll have to wait and see whether he gives subsequent interviews where he talks, where, you know, he's inevitably going to be asked, but whether this has something to do with Pierre Polyev's leadership. I mean, I think regardless, even if he hasn't criticized. criticized Polyev, you know, his actions speak louder than anything, right?

Yeah. This is still going to be taken as a reflection on, on Polyev's leadership, regardless of whether or not Matt Jenroo made that explicit. Jenneru was given the post of a special advisor in economic and security partnerships, not a cabinet position, but certainly some extra responsibilities. What would you make of that? I mean, I think it's, you know, an interesting addition to what's happened here. we'll see what it turns into exactly.

You know, I think if you're Mark Carney and you're mindful of national unity and you don't have a ton of Alberta MPs, giving one some extra responsibility, some extra prominence probably doesn't hurt. But we'll see sort of what it amounts to in terms of, you know, substance, I guess, kind of in the weeks and months to come. You know that feeling when you reach the end of a really good true crime series? You want to know more, more about the people involved, where the case is now, and what it's like behind the scenes. I get that.

I'm Kathleen Goldhar and on my podcast, Crime Story, I speak with the leading storytellers of true crime to dig deeper into the cases we all just can't stop thinking about. Find crime story wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so this is now the third conservative MP to cross the liberals. We've talked about the other two already, Chris Dantramal, Michael Ma. And the liberals could now get a majority without any more floor crossers. So this is big. Explain the current state of play to me. Yeah, sure.

So there is math involved. It's a bit complicated. At this moment, the liberals have 169 MPs, and there are 171. opposition MPs. The sharp minds in our audience will note that that only adds up to 340. And that's because there are three vacancies currently in the House of Commons. One is a seat at University Rosadale in downtown Toronto that previously belonged to Christian Freeland. Freeland posted a statement on social media just now. Today I've written to the speaker to confirm that I will vacate my seat effect of this Friday, January 9th. One of the roles I will be taking on is as an unpaid advisor

on economic issues to the president of Ukraine. This is a volunteer position. The second is Scarborough Southwest that previously belonged to Bill Blair. A longtime liberal MP and cabinet minister is leaving the House of Commons and moving to London. Bill Blair has been appointed to be the next high commissioner to the UK, replacing Ralph Goodell. Blair's departure will trigger... And then there is the curious case of Terbon riding near Montreal on Quebec. The first two riding is University, Rosdale and Scarborough Southwest.

you would expect the liberals to win those two ridings pretty easily. They've been safe liberal seats for a long time. So you can sort of add them to the liberal total whenever those by-elections get called. That would bring it to 171 to 171. Then that brings us to Terrebon. That writing is vacant because just last week, the Supreme Court essentially annulled the result in that election because after all the ballots were counted, it was determined that the liberal candidate there had won by a single vote in last year's

election. But subsequently, we learned that there were errors in at least some of the mail-in ballots. The result was complicated when it was revealed elections Canada made a mistake, having put the wrong address on some mail-in ballots. One woman came forward saying her vote for the Block Quebecois was not counted. The block candidate took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Democracy, the will of the people should always be respected. That's what we heard today. And the Supreme Court ruled pretty quickly that there needed to be a new election there. And so we're waiting at this point to see when exactly it will be called. But it's essentially a toss-up, you know, almost the definition of a toss-up, given that it was decided by one vote last time.

Yeah. And the result there could essentially determine whether the liberals end up with a majority. It's crazy. You know, if the Supreme Court hadn't ruled that way, they would. be kind of on their way likely to a majority right now. What is the latest polling telling us from that, from that riding? Do we have any? Well, I mean, the projections at this point still listed as a toss-up. You would think the liberals have some reason to hope that they can at least repeat or improve on the result last year just because the liberals are doing so well nationally and, you know, essentially improve their standing over the past. several months. So you would think that they have a pretty good shot there

and you would also have to assume that if the majority is a narrow majority at least is riding on that riding, they will expend no shortage of effort to try to win it.

And then also, I mean, they might not even need to wait for these by-elections to get to a majority too, right? Because there are these rumors they're flying around

right now that more floor crossings are coming, but also I say that with a caveat because we have, of course, seen these rumor mills get carried away before. I'm sure you have even more proximity to them than I do in Ottawa, Aaron. But if you are an MP thinking of crossing the floor right now, what are you weighing here? So I think you're probably weighing a couple things. The first is, I mean, I think it's interesting to note that if you look at Christont-Tremont, Michael Maugh, and now Matt Jenneroo, yes, they were all conservatives,

but they were all in ridings where you can look at the result in the last election and say, oh, this is close enough that a liberal could conceivably win in this riding. And so I think, I imagine that if you're in a riding where you can imagine a liberal winning, where there was a liberal who finished a close second or where current polls suggest that a liberal could win, you know, you're that much more likely to consider possibly crossing over to the liberals. I imagine there's also some sort of personal interest in, you know, is this going to give you a bigger profile? Is this going to give you, you know, some kind of job in government, parliamentary secretary, cabinet minister, you know, something like that. You know, you may have

some leverage at this point. If the liberals are this close to a majority, they may be that much more interested in trying to persuade you to cross the aisle. I mean, I think the other part of it, of course, is, you know, if you're a conservative MP and you have, misgivings about Pierre Pollyos leadership, you know, you have to, you know, I assume you know now that the conservative party has stood behind him. He got 87% in the leadership review. He doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. And so, you know, maybe that also has some kind of bearing on your decision. This is obviously very bad news for him, right? Like, I know he had a good week the other week

with the 87.4%. But, I mean, this is not, this is not good. Three MP is leaving your party. No, it's not good. It's hard to know where, if there's a tipping point out there where things really start to move against him. I mean, I think you get, his position gets more precarious with each person who leaves. I mean, you have to note that lots of considerations.

of MPs went out on social media today and condemned what Matt Jenneru did. And from the outside, I can imagine that, you know, a defection like this could serve to sort of galvanize the remaining MPs behind Polyev, at least in the short term. But yeah, his position becomes just a bit more difficult each time an MP leaves because it raises all the questions and doubts. It creates all sorts of bad headlines, you know, you start to wonder whether this will have any impact on a further impact on the conservative party's polling numbers overall. And it gets the liberals that much closer to majority. And if the liberals have a majority, then you're suddenly looking at, you know, a Kearney government being in place with, you know, not quite a free hand, but a pretty strong hand to

implement its agenda. And it just changes the horizon on everything. So I do think if you're conservative MP, look at the 87% and say, well, at the very least, the leadership review isn't going to be the thing that triggers a leadership change. And it's not nothing that 87% of members support Pierre Polio. And so, you know, yes, his position is not super rock solid, but it also doesn't look like he's going to be changed. You know, it doesn't look like the conservative party is going to make a change in leadership next week. To lose? three. I mean, I mean, floor crossing isn't new, right? Leona Alslev in 2018 went from the liberals to the conservatives, Belinda Strontic and 2005 very dramatically across the liberals and ended her relationship

with Peter McKay in the process. You were with Ms. Strachan, just prior to her meeting with the prime minister. Tell me about that time. Well, as I said, I just didn't see it coming. I spent a lot of time with her and her children over the last number of months. And so it hurts. Have we ever seen this many in a matter of months? Is there a historical precedent here? I don't think there is a very good historical precedent for this. I mean, there have definitely been sort of multiple defections at a time.

Cabinet ministers leaving governments. Stockwell Day was the leader of the Canadian Alliance and a whole chunk of that party sort of broke off, you know, that was two decades ago. But there's never been, I don't know that there's ever been a situation like this where you've got, you know, almost this steady drip of defections and a situation where the governing party is, is this close to a majority. And for Polyev, it's, you know, this is maybe obvious, but like losing one, okay, maybe that happens. Losing two, okay, that starts to look not so great. You know, each time another one leaves, I think it just compounds that idea.

And in addition to the sort of parliamentary numbers and whatever it might mean for the caucus internally, I also wonder what it says, like whether the public registers that as a big problem and how much it weakens his hand going forward. You know, in a statement today, Pollyev, you know, he said that Jeneru had betrayed the people of Edmonton Riverbend. You know, and then he also said that Mark Carney is trying to seize a costly liberal majority government. The Canadians voted against in the last election through dirty backroom deals. Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney also expanded on this argument in a post. he said that a liberal has never been elected in Edmonton Riverbend, General is riding,

and that this runs against the clear direction of his constituents. And I wonder, could this be a problem in the other direction, right? Like, do you think that that messaging will resonate with Canadian? I think Canadians in general take a somewhat dim view of floor crossers, although I think it depends on whether the person crossing the floor has benefited or hurt the party they voted for. And I think there is probably some risk to the liberals of looking too cynical or too manipulative or that they've done something kind of underhanded somehow if they get to a majority and it's and it involves floor crossers. Yeah. Because Carney's story, I don't want to interrupt you, but like Carney's whole brayers.

is that he's not a political animal. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think he's, I think he's shunning himself to be somewhat of a political animal. Yeah. I, you know, I do think there is a risk.

I don't know that it's, it necessarily outweighs the potential benefits to the government. And I think if you're the government, you're probably saying it's worth the risk. But I do think there is, you know, you probably don't want to look too triumphant about it. You probably don't want to look too triumphant about it.

You probably don't want to look. too gleeful as people cross the floor. Part of the problem for people, you know, politicians who complain about four crossing is realistically no one's hands are clean here, right? Like, you know, Jason Kenney saying, you know, oh, I don't know about this, this could feel cynicism. It's like, okay, but, you know, Jason Kenny was there in 2006 when David Emerson from the liberals crossed the floor and became a cabinet minister in Stephen Harper's government. And the NDP at the time said, oh, we need to ban floor crossing. Let's, you know, bring in a law that says you can't do that.

And Stephen Harper stood up in the house and said, Mr. Speaker, as I said before, I believe members of parliament should have that freedom be accountable to their constituents for their decisions at the next election. But I will say this, Mr. Speaker, in my observation, the only parties that really have this as an obsession are the parties that no one ever crosses to. in his experience, the only people who don't like floor crossing are the parties that don't benefit from it. And I think that's kind of true. It's like everybody hates floor crossing when it happens to their side. But when it happens to benefit their side, well, then it's a courageous act of putting a side partisanship to work for the benefit of the country. So we'll see how the public reacts to it.

And I do think there is a risk for the government. But I think it's just so hard for another partisan to criticize these actions because, again, it's just everybody's done it. Okay, I take your point that Polly have just won by a lot during his leadership review. But, you know, I was also reading this piece by Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne. And he wrote this even before the latest floor crosser news. And he is making the argument that Polly have won over the rank and file members. But the party establishment is already making plans. for his exit.

And he puts this recent trip to Washington by conservative MP, Jamil Giovanni, up as an example of how Giovanni is positioning himself as the next leader of the MAGA wig of the party. Giovanni, for people listening, has been framing Canadians' reaction to Trump's attacks on the country as like a hissie fit.

We are shooting ourselves in the foot if we continue this anti-America, you know, hissy-fit. And this is the kind of reason I'm trying to talk into our government and some of the liberals. Which is also a lot like how the Trump administration is framing it. And do you agree with coin there? Is this what you think is ultimately happening right now?

They're starting to make moves. I don't know that we're already into the endgame stage of things. I do think it exposes a certain friction in the way we've built things, right? Like, you know, Pierre Polly have won the support of the membership, but there is also a parliamentary caucus. And then there is also sort of, I guess you can call them conservative elites, right? Like strategists and people who work in the party or who work in governments and so on. And none of them are necessarily beholden to the others, right? You know, caucus may take note of a membership vote and may say, oh, well, that shows that the people who vote for us, the people who support.

this party are behind Pierre Polyev, but that doesn't necessarily bind the caucus to support Pierre Polyeuf. I do think on Jamil Giovanni in particular, it's interesting that he is making a lot of effort, it seems, to raise his own profile. I don't know whether that amounts to a leadership challenge at this point, but I do think, as we've seen, it does potentially raise problems for Polyev because Giovanni may go and do things or say things that Pierre Polyev doesn't agree with and that he ends up having to disavow. And I think, you know, whether or not it's leading to, you know, a full sort of schism in the party or a real leadership challenge, it adds to, you know, the things that Pierre Polyev, if he is going to

somehow hang on, ends up having to navigate. Right. I mean, it's already a big problem for him, right? Like, he had to distance himself from Giovanni, I think on Tuesday. He had to say that... Well, he speaks for himself and I speak for the party. Thank you. And I saw Melanie Jolie also kind of lean into this today, too. That Pierre Ploulyev has to explain why his MP, Giovanni, went to Washington

to basically say, that the Trump tariffs were justified, so clearly he's not capable to control his caucus or to defend Canada's interests. This does not sound like it's going away from. Yeah, 24 hours ago, we would have said the problem, the big problem for Pierre Polly of this week is that Jimil Giovanni went to Washington, had these meetings, and then came back and criticized Canadian. Yeah. and said, you know, Canadians were in the middle of an anti-American, quote-unquote, hissy-fit. And I think that has a real potential, you know, to register with Canadians in some respect, because I think Canadians probably would look at the situation and say they have real reasons to be

concerned about what's going on in the United States and their actions are not a hissy fit, but based on, you know, what's actually happening right now. And the fact that Giovanni did it and said what he said raises questions about how free does an MP like Giovanni feel to sort of speak his mind and do what he wants to do and maybe say things that the party doesn't agree with. And it's a bit, you know, look, most of the time, the conversation around parliament and around political parties is about how party leaders have too much power. and we need to give MPs more power and they should be free to speak their mind and so on and so forth. And I think that's broadly true. The flip side of that is when they say things that party leader disagrees with or doesn't like, how does the party leader handle that?

And is Giovanni somebody who is going to kind of discipline himself and not put the party in a difficult position? Or is he going to speak his mind regardless of what it means for the political, the party. And it, you know, Polly of sort of fighting, fighting it from both angles. One is, you know, he's got MPs, now three MPs that have left. And then he's got, you know, at least one MP inside caucus who's saying things that he has to renounce. And that's, you know, it's, it just, it may, it just sort of adds to the troubles that Pauley was facing right now. Okay. Aaron, thank you very much. Anytime. All right. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Plesson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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