The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Reporter's Notebook -- Raj and Russo On Poilievre Trying to Get His Act Together

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Days after the latest floor crossing it's still the talk of Ottawa. Althia Raj and Rob Russo are back for their every second Tuesday, Reporter's Notebook, with the latest of what they are hearing in the nation's capital. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Tuesday, and it's that kind of Tuesday for reporters' notebook. Althea Raj and Rob Russo are joining us, and they'll be with us right after this. And hello there again, Peter Mansbridge here. Just the last week before we take our Christmas break, and great week to have our last reporter's notebook for 2025 with Rob Russo and Althea Raj with us.

Both of them are in Ottawa today, which has been an interesting place to be for the last couple of days, since last Thursday night when there was yet another floor crossing from the Conservatives to the Liberals. Now, four days usually quiets things in a weekend, but it doesn't seem to have quieted discussion about, what happened last week at all. Althea, why don't you start us off on this?

What is your take four days later in terms of what happened and why? Well, what happened, we all know, essentially, what happened, Michael Maugh, who has, who won the election as a conservative in Mark Communionville, but that has traditionally been a liberal riding. It's been a swing riding, but you're strong, chances that he could probably win it as a liberal under Mark Carney, was courted by Tim Hodgins, at least Mr. Hutchins is taking credit, the natural resource minister. And it was quite the coup because it was kept under the hat and surprised a lot of people,

including myself, on Thursday. You know, Chris D'Antremo, we all knew he was unhappy in the conservative benches. Matt Jenneroo, if you had to pick some people who are unhappy in the conservative benches, his name would have been one of them. He's the person who did not cross the floor, but suddenly resigned and never really explained why he was resigning. And this one has a lot of conservatives really worried that there are more. And you've heard Steve McKinnon, the Liberal House leader, suggests that there possibly are more. And now the conservative backbench is kind of awakening. to the fact that Mark Carney might get his majority through unhappy floor crossers and not the

kind of people who were known, known people who were unhappy, as in there are new members of the conservative backbench who are being picked off by the liberals in ways that they did not anticipate. And that kind of changes the calculation about whether or not they want to stick with their leader. I think that's the overall theme that people are now awakening to. Rob, you see it that way, too? Yeah, I think it's fair to say that I, like a lot of people, was slack-jawed with astonishment when this one happened. And I think it's, in a way, it's emblematic of the whole year and the whole shift in the tectonic plates of political Canada. I mean, a lot of us,

were talking about, even on election night, that given the numbers and how close the liberals were to a majority, they were going to go shopping for MPs. Almost all of us who were talking about that were thinking they were going to go after scattered and demoralized new Democrats. And instead, and instead, it's been conservatives. I think that that surprised people. Mr. Ma was a surprise again, because he was distinguished only by the fact that he was completely inconspicuous. Very, very few of us knew who this guy was before Thursday. He isn't a flamethrower. He isn't a partisan necessarily.

And he's from a swing riding. So I think that there was surprise in that. There was surprising that kind of either brazen or completely oblivious to the politics of not just going to the conservative Christmas party, but eating the food, dancing, bringing your family, making sure everybody gets into the conservative Christmas picture with the family and the leader and the leader's wife, to going to the other guy's Christmas party the night before.

But I really think what it does tell us, if I can get back to that tectonic shift, is that conservatives feel very, very comfortable a number of them in Mark Kearney's government. And why? Because Mark Carney's government is not the liberal government that existed a year ago. Just, just, you know, look at it. Look at it from the carbon tax to the Building Canada Act, to going from, we can't get to 2% of GDP for another 6% or seven years to, we're getting the 2% this year and we're going to 5% in those six or seven years. This all tells us how different the liberal party is under Mark Carney, how comfortable conservatives feel in that. And it also tells us, I think, a little bit about

Pierre Poyev. He doesn't know his own party. He doesn't know his own caucus. He doesn't have any kind of distant early warning system. And you would have thought that he would have erected a vigorous one after Mr. Dantremant left. And if you take Mr. Jenneru into it, there are now three conservative MPs who've left his caucus in the last two months rather than serve under Pierre Puellev. Again, like these tectonic plates aren't just shifting. They're breaking apart in some ways. You had your hand up there, I'll see you. Yeah, I see it somewhat differently. Like, I did think that they were going to go after conservatives. That seemed to make the most sense. If you look at the new Democrat benches, there's not a lot of

sympathico with Mark Carney's liberals in there. But I think where people assumed the connections would be made, and this was kind of the direction from the center, which is, hey, if you're friends with some conservative MPs, go out and reach out to them. And so the early connections in the spring were in that direction. They were conservatives that, you know, had bonded with liberals on parliamentary association travel, and they both realized they hated their leaders. And And they were like they had much more in common with each other and kind of that sort of relationship building.

But it takes a lot. Even if you, you know, don't like Pierre Paulyev style of leadership, even if you agree with Christauntryor that it feels like a frat house a lot of the time, because you're kind of of that party, there's, there are family bonds there. And having someone leave the team, the sense of betrayal, that's what kept and still keeps a lot of people in Pierre Paulyev's camp. The thing that's interesting with Michael Maugh is I don't know I don't know him well enough to say that he's not a partisan, but I believe he has run for the conservatives before. Under Andrew Shearer, he did, yeah. But he was a new MP, and so that those

family bonds are not as tight. And so it's easier to cross the floor when you don't feel like you're turning your back on the people that, you know, you've fundraised for, that you've spent decades door knocking with that you've been in the trenches and the opposition and the dark ugly days that you've gone through like leadership battles together and so that i think is a bit of a warning sign now pier paul yep has tried you can criticize his efforts perhaps they're lackluster efforts but he has tried to build bridges and get to know his caucus like he has been having these MP breakfasts and he has been trying to reach out and reaffirm the bonds with his team. Clearly, that has not been enough for many of them. I think the other thing that has played

is, you know, with the MOU, for example, in November, is that the more, the longer Mark Carney is in office, the more he seems to be governing as a progressive conservative. And so, you know, people are seeing the possibility that they might be sitting for three and a half years in the conservative backbench. They might be going through some bruising battles. or there's a chance that they could, you know, be a cabinet minister or a parliamentary secretary or if there is an election, even if the liberals remain in a minority position, that they're better off crossing the floor to keep their own seat. And so there are a lot of personal calculations as well, I think, playing out.

Well, you'd think that if there's another one in the wings ready to come over, the one that would make it a majority government for the liberals, that actually might be worth a cabinet seat. You know, so we'll have to keep our eye on that one. I'm still a little puzzled by this, and you kind of answered it there, Althea, but I'm still a little puzzle about the type of person they've gone after here in this last, you know, month or so is not the type of person they thought they would have been going after from the Conservative Caucus six months ago.

So I'm still intrigued by that, that conversation. concept, that they're looking for a particular kind of person. I mean, you mentioned Tim Hodgson was the one who is at least claiming credit for MOS move over to the Liberal Party. They're in adjoining ridings, correct? And apparently, they knew each other from, you know, the business world from both. Their wives were friends as well. Okay, so they're families or friends.

But, you know, in terms of this kind of scanning the benches for potential crossovers, I find that interesting, that they've gone through, at least you assume they've gone through, a change in the way they're going about that in the six months since the election. Well, I think because of the kind of guy that he is, I think Althea's right. He's not a naked partisan. He's a business guy, right? I think that actually makes it more worrisome for Mr. Poyev. One of the criticisms made of Mr. Poyev, And I think Alfea is right. Mr. Polyev is making the effort. He's having heart to hearts with a whole bunch of people, including very recently, including since they lost Dantraman, asking the question, what do I need to do better? But one of the criticisms that he heard was you need to go out and recruit people from the business community

who have real life experience, not Andrew Shear, who's never really worked in the public sector, or you, you've never really worked in the private sector either. And here's Michael Ma, a guy who was in business, a guy who I believe he has his MBA, the kind of guy that people have been saying you need to recruit and hang on to, he's the guy who's leaving. In a way, it reminds me a little bit of David Emerson. David Emerson was a businessman of grand stature. People knew him. He was a former head of a big forest product company in British Columbia.

he he didn't leave because he was a disaffected liberal he left because he wanted to do things and he thought the the country needed somebody with his skills to actually do things as opposed to sit on the opposition bench and complain so you know in a way i think that makes it more worrisome that it is somebody like mr mahn who has his background that crossed over well maybe you know maybe paul yev was listening to that kind of criticism but there's been no evidence in the the interviews he's given in the last couple of days since this happened, including the one with Rosie Barton yesterday or on Sunday on CBC, there's been no evidence that he's taking that advice.

He's trying, Peter, and my understanding is there are people who are turning him down now. He's trying to recruit candidates for the next election, trying to say that it could come as soon as the spring, doing it with some prominent people in Toronto, and they're turning them down. how things have changed just in six short months or eight short months of losing track of the timing what did you make of his answers to like some of

rosy's questions and i thought he was really revealing so once again he'd been asked in november i think after christantromo crossed the floor if there was anything like if he'd reflected if there was anything that he planned to change or just in his own leadership style the tone and he basically sidest up the question. Rosie also tried to get him to answer that question and he answered it by not answering it, which is nothing has changed. He doesn't want to self-reflect at least publicly. I don't think he's not doing so at home, but I don't think he wants to talk about that publicly. But what it shows is that he only has one track. He's consistently,

shown that he only has one track. And I think that's the danger going into the conservative leadership race. Like, the liberals are worried that the conservatives are going to say, this guy, we can't win with them, and they're going to dump them. And they think that they want to run against Pierre Pueleev. They desperately want the conservatives to keep Pierre Pueleev as their leader. But there are a lot of liberals, there are a lot of conservatives who are in Mr. Puelevis' backbench. and front bench, who don't think that they can win with him.

And this is a very large conservative tent, and it's going to be really challenging to see, you know, which side can tug, you know, in a more forceful way. Is it the new conservatives that they brought in during the conservative leadership race that Pierre Puehl have won, who like the anger, who like that tone, who like the social media messages? Or is it the boomers who are like, no, this is not what we want.

This is, we want a more progressive conservative tone. We like your conservative policies, but we don't like the way this leader is selling our policies. And it was interesting to me that Pierre Puellev decided to go on Rosemary Barton's show because he's not speaking to the angry people on social media by speaking to was Mary Barton on the CBC, but the message that he delivered, I don't think was the message that that audience particularly was hoping to hear. And I don't know, I mean, I heard Chantal on Good Talks on Friday talk about the Flora McDonald's syndrome. There, you know, we had heard rumblings of EDAs who were unhappy. And at the time, it felt like a lost cause. Like,

Are you really going to spend a couple thousand dollars to go to Calgary to cast a ballot against Pierre Paulyev thinking he's going to win anyways? And I do wonder if the races to select delegates were happening now because they've concluded, if that calculation would have changed with Michael Maas floor crossing to the liberals. Yeah, because, you know, I look at all these, you know, numbers that are kind of out there in terms. terms of where Pierre Poliyev's real strength is, it's within the Conservative Party. There's not much for him outside of the Conservative Party, but inside the Conservative Party, the numbers look strong for him and continuing as leader. So I kind of look at that on one side, you know, people saying, you know, 80%, he could get an 80% vote. And then you hear on the other side the kind of discussions that are taking place about he can't hold

down to his own caucus, you know, I'm upset, and maybe I'll, I might leave, or at least I'm talking to liberals. The two things don't seem to square here in terms of whether or not he's in trouble or not in trouble. He seems, you know, he hasn't, as Althea says, he's on a kind of single track. He's on one track. He is not changing his position on things. Here's the argument that he's making with conservatives. I mean, and he didn't make this on Rosie's show in quite the way he's doing it in private. What he's saying to them is, let's look at some of the data. It is true that boomers who used to support the Conservative Party do not support the Conservative Party as much as they did before. However, younger people, and right up until the age of 49,

are supporting the Conservative Party in bigger numbers. What are the biggest issues that concern Canadians right now? What poses the most possibilities to leverage new votes? It's affordability. And Mr. Poyev has succeeded in the past in making that an issue. He succeeded and, you know, he got lots of help from what seemed like indifference from Justin Trudeau in making that the issue that made Pierre Paulyev the next prime minister in waiting. So he says, the issue is with us.

The future is with us in terms of the electorate. Stick with me. I will deliver that future in the next campaign. But he doesn't seem to be making that argument. He certainly didn't make it like that in public. I do believe that there is a danger to Mark Carney if he doesn't address affordability in a more direct way than he has up until now. I think that that's one of the dangers for him in 2026.

But I don't know if Mr. Polyev, I still think we'll do well at the convention unless, unless another MP crosses. Because I think Mr. Polyev's people control much of the party, much of the executive, a lot of the writings across the country. It will almost be immaterial because the leadership review is already happening. It's happening inside the caucus room. And that is going to continue no matter what happens in Calgary in January. But leadership reviews can be very surprising. Like, I did not think Thomas Mulcair was going to get knifed in the same way that he was after the 2015 election. I don't know.

I'm less convinced of Pierre Puellev's ability to stay on. Like, to me, watching that Rosemary Barton interview, it kind of felt like dead man walking. Like, everything he was throwing out there, like, the problem is not with him. The problem is with Mark Carney's leadership. Mark Carney is manipulating his way into a majority government. Even the arguments on affordability. Like now Mr. Poliyev is telling us that the reason that food costs so much is because of the industrial carbon price. Whereas in the spring, he told us it was about the consumer carbon price.

If only the consumer carbon price would be removed, you'd be able to afford your groceries. And he would, you know, pointing out to those beautiful cherry tomatoes that were made in Manatech, the writing he lost, that they were, you know, $5.99, and this was outrageous. Well, the consumer carbon price left, and those cherry tomatoes are still $5.99. So I don't know that we have given, we being the media here, have given adequate scrutiny to some of the policy arguments that Mr. Puelev is making

because, you know, he is the leader of the official opposition and we are, you know, not facing an imminent election at this very moment, possibly in the spring, but we've not really done that job. Maybe we've also been a little bit busy with some scandals here and there and some sexier topics like floor crossings. So I don't know. It feels like something is a foot. Oh, wow.

You drop that. No? Well, hey, I love things that are when something is a foot. I just want to know what that something is. Well, you know, Rob is right to point, and, you know, as I said, like, the delegates have already been selected. But I think the conversation is starting to shift because Mr. Carney has moved the party so far to the right. You know, the liberals have their own issues, which is what are they going to do with their to maintain their electoral coalition? Let's say, if we do have an election in the spring.

But if you're a conservative and you're looking at the numbers, like the conservative party is still like, in neck in national public opinion polls. And I was looking at Abacus Data's latest poll last week, which is the young people are neck and neck, conservative and liberals. Boomers are way ahead for the liberals. And millennials and Gen X are favoring the conservatives. And on the top issue, the conservatives lead,

as Rob was pointing out, affordability, but not just affordability. Crime, immigration, these are still the things that people have most top of mind and the conservatives are winning. But Pierre Paulyev is 25 points below Mark Carney's preferred PM and the person you trust. So the issue is not the party. He's a drag on his party. And a lot of concertors are realizing can they win with Pierre Paulyev? And the answer seems to be more and more no.

Let me, using that, let me throw this back at Rob, because unless I heard it wrong, it sounded to me like what you were saying is, no matter what happens in Calgary that Polyev's future is going to ride on how he deals with that caucus and how that caucus reacts to him. That's right. I just, you know, I challenge that a bit. I mean, if Polyev comes out of there with 80% support or better,

yeah. How is a caucus member going to stand up in caucus and go after this, you know, his throat i mean he's got the support of his party yeah uh tell me how many people are going to actually turn up from atlantic canada quebec and ontario and i'll tell you whether or not that mandate um intimidates people who are asking questions in in the caucus um i'm i'm not sure that it will um i i think that um like i said the the leadership review is happening it's it's not going well for Mr. Polyev. I think it's a completely different ask for Mr. Polyev to say,

don't change leaders now because there could be an election at any time, as quickly as the spring. That's the argument he's also making as well. We can't afford to change now, given that we're a few months away possibly from an election. Well, that argument's gone if one war crosses. It's also gone if you look at what happened earlier this year. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think, I think the best argument you can make is I am listening, I am hearing, I am learning, but I'm also learning about what's going on around the world. I see incumbent governments who are getting in trouble because of the price of groceries, the price of beef, the price of poultry. And I see, yes, I see Mark Carney right now at the apogee of his popularity. And there aren't two, too many prime ministers who increase their vote share in subsequent elections.

That's a rare thing. And if that holds true, and I can increase my vote share, if the new Democrats come back with a leader that can divide the vote, then you should give me another chance. The other thing I would say to him, if I were making an argument, I haven't heard him make this argument, but I think that he should, is that, really conservatives have been their own worst enemy for 60 years now. Conservative leaders have been undone by conservatives. Brian Mulroney was undone by disaffected Western conservatives. You know, the last two leaders of the Conservative Party were undone by conservatives. Go back to John Defenbaker.

He was undone by conservatives. James Moore said something very interesting on the weekend that I think is absolutely true. And it's almost like they're reflecting a right-word version of the New Democrats. They have to decide if they're going to be movement conservatives and adhere to principles as opposed to being pragmatic conservatives interested in actually governing. And if they don't, they're not interested in that. You go back to what Stephen Harper used to say to conservatives. Conservative governments in Canada are almost an accident.

it seems two-thirds to three-quarters of the time we elect liberals and the rest of the time it's conservatives but it's almost an accident it's almost because people are fed up with the liberals if conservatives are going to be more than an accident of political history they have to realize just really how pragmatic Canadians are and and try to be something that I think Carney is turning into and that's a radical pragmatist we'll talk about Mark Carney and what all this does for him but we've got to take our first break here

our only break is coming up right now we'll be back after this and welcome back you're listening to the Tuesday episode this Tuesday it's reporter's notebook with Althea Raj and Rob Russo glad to have them both with us and you're listening on SiriusXM

Channel 167 Canada Talks or on your favorite podcast platform you'll be happy to know that we're hoping we're hoping that early in the new year will be getting reporters notebook and the more butts conversations which also run on Tuesdays into our YouTube channel

more on that as the new year begins okay I want to talk I want to talk about the other side of what happened last week, and that really is the Mark Carney situation. He actually later today begins his kind of week of year-end interviews with the major television networks.

These used to be a really big deal, and occasionally sometimes they are, because something drops in these interviews, but boy, for quite a few years now, there's been not a lot come out of those year-end interviews. but hopefully something will this week. But if we watch Mark Carney this week and the way he handles some of the questions,

which I'm sure it'll all be good, smart questions, what has he got to watch out for? What are the dangers for Mark Carney right now where seemingly everything seems to be going his way, at least politically? What does he got to look out for? I'll see you. Why don't you start?

arrogance. I don't, I think, you know, there's so much goodwill towards Mr. Carney at the moment. You see it from the public, you see it in the comments, any negative story that you write about the liberals at this moment. I'm not sure that the prime minister is going to get a rocky ride, even though I personally believe that there are a lot of things, a lot of pieces of legislation that liberals have introduced that deserve more public attention and scrutiny. the Prime Minister said a few weeks ago that one of the things he got admired about Donald Trump was his ability to flood the zone and one thing that I don't think has gotten enough coverage emanating from Ottawa is just how the Carney Liberals have flooded the zone with legislation that completely goes against

moves that the party has long said that were its values like preventing asylum seekers from having access to a hearing before they're deported or you know giving cabinet ministers the power to suspend laws kind of in a secretive way so that um products and services can get tested more efficiently more quickly uh or that natural resources projects get built like we're opening the door to potential corruption uh and you know these are kind of the gaps that legislates and

I've been trying to fix, and now we're reopening them. So that was kind of like my little beef, so I snuck that in there, Peter. But I hope he gets asked those questions because I think they're worth, you know, they're worth having him flesh out. I think the most telling thing that's gotten the most probably public attention has been the prime minister's seeming reversal on the environment. You know, this is a guy who wrote a book that said that the one thing that governments around the world need to focus more was on climate change, that this required a consistent effort and a much larger effort. And we have not seen that from this prime minister.

In fact, things have been moving in the complete opposite direction. And a lot of liberals are wondering what this man stands for. And those are the type of questions that I think he's going to be asked or he's going to. provide answers to whether or not he's asked in the weeks and months I've had because we have kind of a sketch of who we think Mark Carney is but now we're like coloring in between the lines well you know this is a good week to try and find out some of the answers of those questions because he will be doing as I said sit down interviews with some of the best interviewers in the country in terms of the television networks anyway and let's see what they confront him

with and what the kind of answers are. Rob, where's the danger zone for Mr. Carney? Well, I think Althea's right. I mean, you just look at where we were. One year and two days ago from when this podcast drops, Mark Carney was signing off on coming into Ottawa to be Justin Trudeau's finance Minister and Justin Trudeau was about to pick up the phone and tell Christia Freeland she was she

was being sideline from from that job and you just look at how much has changed since then you look at what he's done on on the carbon tax on on C2 on what we're spending in the way of defense so he's clearly capable of change, of dropping things, priorities, principles. We talked about the conservatives paying a price for adhering to certain principle. Liberals gain from, from it seems, just dropping principles overboard when the electorate moves in a completely different direction. So if I look at that, I think some of the dangers that are ahead for Mr. Carney are certainly in Donald Trump in the United States. He was hired to come to an

agreement with Mr. Trump. We have no agreement. He set deadlines that were blithely ignored by Mr. Trump. It's true that right now, even though Mr. Carney has been foiled, frustrated, failed to make a deal, Mr. Carney gets a pass because of the sense that Trump is so truculent that nobody can actually make a deal with with Donald Trump. But there is anxiety. I think the biggest danger, though, to Mark Carney, arrogance is part of this as well, is that he may be detached from the pain that Canadians are going through across the country. And not just like it's pain right across the board. It's shock when people go in to the grocery store. There is a real sense of a cost of living crisis out there. And I know it's not reflected in the inflation figures, but it's groceries in particular

that I don't hear the Prime Minister connecting with, particularly when he goes on and touts things like the benefits of artificial intelligence. Like there are a lot of Canadians who probably see that as a threat and not as an opportunity. And they see it as much of a threat, if not more of a threat now, given what, you know, that their jobs are in jeopardy because of Mr. Trump, every time they go into a grocery store. So I think he needs to do something on affordability very, very quickly in the new year. I think that that's something that's not just percolating below the surface. It's right there. It's bubbling over. Well, we have heard that he's actually going to do that. Like some of the green measures that were touted will come out, whether that's

through new rebates to green your home or more people-focused measures than the industry and big business focus measures, which seemed to be where the Premiers focus was. I don't know if this is really the answer to your question, but I think Rob is kind of taking it beyond the television year on interviews, but 2026 is going to have to be a year where the Premiser delivers on something, right? Because what people think the liberals have gotten a lot of things done, but they've just announced a lot of things, whether that's the major, and that's like a pretty big coup, I got to say from a communication standpoint, like the major projects office is a great

communications coup because they are announcing all these things, but most of which were projects that were already getting done. What's getting done that is new, I think the opposition will have a lot to pin the government on with that angle. In terms of legislation, like one bill got rural assent all fall. This is such a lackluster result. Like Justin Trudeau a year ago in January was talking about how parliament was paralyzed.

And in that fall sitting, he had passed two rural assent, 12 bills. You know, so it's really, really unimpressive the way the Karni liberals have managed house time and whether or not they want to pass these bills and the efforts that they've made with the opposition to try to get things through the house. I agree with Rob.

I do think that the affordability measure, like I remember being in So-San-Marie and speaking to one of the steel workers who said he was voting for Carney because he thought that Carney would best be able to safeguard his job. And we're going to likely see in the spring and in the later part

of the winter is more people actually feeling the pint from the tariffs, and those people feeling like Mark Carney has let them down because their job has not been saved. And so I do think that there has to be a more people-focused message. You know, I'm reminded when Rob talks about the food at the grocery store that Mark Carney did not know how much a grocery cart cost during the liberal leadership debate when only Christia Freeland and Karina Gould can say how much the cost of a grocery cart was for a family of four. So I do think those are vulnerabilities, but I think what both Mark Carney and Pierre Puelev have benefited from, frankly, this fall, is that Mr. Paulyev has no leadership challenger breeding down his neck. And Mr. Carney and Mr. Puelef don't have a strong

NDP leader who is having a press conference every day in the foyer of the House of Commons saying how they're forgetting people, how they need to do more for people. Like you can imagine you know, Rob Ashton breathing down the neck of Pierre Puelly of on the left with unionized workers. You can imagine Rob Ashton breathing down to the neck of, I don't know that Rob Ashton's going to win. I'm just saying like a strong, due Democrat leadership voice trying to make the case that, you know, it's great to focus on systems and to spend, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars, if that's what you want to do, to try to spur, you know, trickle down economy, but it doesn't necessarily work for the people at the bottom.

And those, the fact that we don't have a strong left of center voice, I think has been quite noticeable this fall. I'm out of time, but let me end on that. Sorry about that. No, no, not at all. It's a good conversation. But let me end on the NDP interim leader at the moment, who offered up perhaps the easiest way to get to a majority

is you ask your speaker to step down and you can have an NDP speaker of the House, which takes him out of the equation in terms of the vote. unless it's a tie, and then they traditionally vote with the government as Speaker. But is there, do you see any possibility of that happening? Because that's the, that, that's actually what Don Davies said. I think that's what the premise that was put to him, but. Right.

Talk to me about the premise, though. The other problem with that is it doesn't solve the, the lack of ability to get things through the House. that Althea was referring to earlier. The reason they can't get a lot of stuff for the House is because they're being blocked at the committee level. They don't have a majority on committees. And so the conservatives and the Block Quebecois are holding things up.

You know, he, Karnia said that he wants to get a lot in through the funnel as much as he can at the beginning because he knows this is the time that he has to do it. He knows that it's power ebbs as time goes on and more nicks and cuts come along. If he wants to do that, he needs help at the committee level. Any agreement with Don Davies would have to include some sort of arrangement not to be obstreperous at the committee level. And that'd be tough for an interim NDP leader to guarantee. So if he's able, then forget about the NDP option,

then if he's able to get another conservative to cross the floor, Does everything go back in terms of the committee structures, in terms of the numbers on committees? He would need to prorogue, I think, because the committees retain their makeup. So he has to end Parliament and start a new session of Parliament, which he could do. He'd go to the Governor General and get another throne speech. And then the math resets. Yeah, but yeah, and he would have more control over committees. But I think it's interesting to hear Hodgson and McKinnon talk about more.

than one conservative. Because really, if you just have a bare majority like that, all of your MPs have to turn out for votes. It's a sweaty kind of way to have a majority mandate. You'll take it, you'll take it, but there's not a lot of relaxation. You need more than that. And so I take note when I hear Hodgson saying he's got several people interested in talking to him. And that would allow Bill Blair and Jonathan Wilkinson to take the diplomatic post. that we all expect them to take and vacate their seats, the government would still be able to continue passing its legislation. But then they've got to win by elections.

Yeah, some were difficult than others. Exactly. Listen to you too. Thank you so much. Good conversation. Have a great holiday. We'll do it all over again when we get back early in January. Who knows what the standings will look like at that point.

But thank you for this. Don't go away, everybody. to give you a quick update on the question of the week coming up for your turn on Thursday. We've spent so much time this year talking about things that are difficult or bad things that are happening in different parts of the world. And you've been great in giving your answers on your turn each week on how you feel about these things. This week, given the sense of the holidays, it's a very different kind of question. It's what made you happy this year? what was something that was in the news

that you enjoyed watching, listening, reading about? So that's your question. You've got till Wednesday, that's tomorrow at 6 p.m. Eastern Time to get your answer in. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Keep it under 75 words and make sure you include your name and the location you're writing from.

Those are all the conditions you have to meet to make it on the air, along with the random ranter on Thursday. And a thank you for all your letters this year. That's been terrific. That's going to wrap it up for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in less than 24 hours.