The Paikin Podcast - Everything Political: Carney’s Long, Strange Journey to a Majority Government

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Justin Ling joins the Everything Political panel with former MPs Martha Hall Findlay and Tony Clement to discuss the newly minted majority government in Canada, why Justin thinks this is now a true national unity government, why Tony thinks Carney is actually now a “pottery barn” government, whether a stronger mandate will enable the government to address the dual unity crises in Quebec and Alberta, and the democratic legitimacy of this majority. They also discuss whether Pierre Poilievre’s leadership is to blame for the floor crossings, how stable this “tiny majority” government really is, and then the usual round of “good on yas. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] 

Clearly we need to start with the biggest development on this show, which is, last time we gathered together, Tony Clement was wearing an appalling looking red jersey. I believe it had a C and an H in the middle of it. And I think our guest today, Justin Link, probably likes them. Anyway, we're not going to talk about them because Martha Hall-Finley is showing us the way. There we go. A beautiful, brand new PWHL jersey because you recently went to a game in Vancouver. Tell us all about it, Martha.

Well, I went to a game. I went to a Vancouver goldenized game in Vancouver a couple weeks ago. But the reason I'm doing this is because when you guys were on and on about Montreal and Toronto, I said I'm going to a goldenized game. And you both threw a complete blank. So this is sort of shaming. It's like professional women's hockey league. And so I felt obliged to join the Jersey battle.

But this is not for a specific team. It's obviously for the league. Now, Tony, Tony, you and Justin would both have to acknowledge that that that That's a much better looking jersey than the thing you showed up wearing last time. I'm not going to diss an entire league. Just say yes. I think, yeah. I think the word you're looking for is yes, I think.

Justin, what do you think? Take a look. Esthetically speaking, it's much better. It would look better as a victor jersey because there's no reason why Montreal can win both cups in the same year. Okay. Fair answer. Boy, the amount of cockiness, Montrealer's show on this show is,

and anywhere else for that matter, I hate to say that. This is a great line. Came from former mayor of Montreal, Jean-Drepeau, who I think put out a press release from his mayor's office one year that said, the Stanley Cup parade route will assume its usual path this year. And, well, I guess when you've won, what is it, 24 cups, you can get away with putting out of fresh release like that. 1993 was our last cup, so we were. Don't talk to me about how long it's been my friend. Don't talk to me. Don't even go there.

We're not going to talk any more hockey because it's now time to talk everything political. Well, we are happy despite his often questionable choices of wardrobe to welcome back. Tony Clement to this program. Tony Clement, the former Ontario and federal cabinet minister. Martha Hall-Finley is here, the former federal liberal MP, and of course now the director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. And our special guest this week is Justin Ling, the journalist, freelancer. You can read them all over the place, but mostly on the weekends in the Toronto,

where he has this wonderful, they give you a beautiful piece of real estate in that paper, Justin. You get a full page every weekend. And he was at the liberal convention in Montreal on the weekend, which is why we wanted him here on this program. So welcome everybody. It's great to see you all. And I want to just start with this. We now know, as a result of by-elections that took place earlier this week, as a result of a bunch of floor crossing, that the Kearney liberals now have their majority government.

It is a tiny majority as opposed to a strong minority. Justin, start us off. What's changed? What's changed? And listen, I'm going to tell you right now. I know people are going to start gagging when I use this phrase because I've even heard some liberals roll their eyes at me when I said it over the weekend. We now have a national unity government. That's what this is.

We had talked about this last year, given the extent of the threat posed by Donald Trump and the state of chaos in the world. We had talked about the idea of, you know, what would it mean for the parties to put aside their petty differences, to, you know, put aside some of the partisan and ideological interests and come together to form some kind of union government concerned with addressing these threats? Obviously, that didn't happen, given the state of partisanship in Ottawa, probably for good reason. But a bunch of MPs voted with their feet. You know, five from both the NDP and the conservatives. then voters in these three writings confirmed the choice that there ought to be a majority government that has both a mandate and runway to respond to these threats over the next three-ish years. And frankly, I think there's a general vibe in this country that this is a good thing.

The government now has leeway. The opposition now has leeway to oppose properly. It's kind of the best of both worlds. Okay, Tony, you heard it here first. A national unity government under Prime Minister Mark Carney. It wouldn't go that far. And nor should we have one. Can I just plaintively make the point that it is important in a democratic country to have a vigorous opposition?

I know that Canadians, maybe some Canadians don't want to hear that. The siren call of a national unity government, whatever that means, makes them feel good inside. But it's really not good for democracy if everyone is agreeing on everything all the time. So I think it is important that we have an opposition and an opposition leader that is focused on putting a counter narrative, if you want to put it that way, about issues that other Canadians are concerned about, whether it's the high cost of living, the cost of groceries, housing, where are we on our free trade agreement? It looks like Mexico is going to get an agreement before we even get started. you know, all of these issues have to be raised somewhere. And if they're not raised in the House of Commons, where are they raised? So, yes, I understand that there's a majority government now.

I've said on this program that it's a pottery barn time now. You know, if Mark Carney breaks it, he owns it. And it will have to answer for that in a next election, which is fine. That's a democratic accountability. So I think that your right to characterize this as a very weak majority rather than a very strong minority. But he's in charge. He's the guy. He's the prime minister.

He's got all of the levers of power now in his hands. And now he can be judged on results. Martha, what do you think? A national unity government? Well, one, I just want to say, I totally agree with Tony that you need a vigorous opposition. But unfortunately, over time, it just feels like people think that opposition means. you have an obligation to oppose. And I've always felt the view that the opposition has an obligation as elected representatives

to help make sure that the country is governed well. And so if you have a rigorous opposition that is really contributing as opposed to an opposition that is just opposing everything, I'm not saying that was the case in the last few months. I actually think we were getting better, frankly. But I also think it's really important to have at a time of such import right now for the country with respect to the United States, it's with respect to, national unity with respect to national security.

I think, I think, you know, a lot of Canadians really do want to have a government that can just get things done. And I think Carney is inspiring a fair bit of, you know, he gives the impression he's going to be able to get things done in a way that makes sense. And so I think there's a lot of support. I actually thought it was very interesting that they won in Montreal as well as the other two. I think the two in Toronto were kind of foregone conclusions. The fact that they won in Montreal when the Block Kibiqua was.

was immediately going down, you know, there've been enough floor crossings. Carney doesn't need this vote to get a majority so you can vote with your heart. You can vote, you know, where your sentiment is. They still voted liberal, which I found very interesting. And I think what that means, Tony, I just won riding. Who knows, but I think it means, yeah, there is a support for, you know what? This is a time where we need to get things done. Well, let's not overblow it, though, Martha, because the three ridings that were one in the by-elections were all liberal writings.

Tedra Bunn was by a very, very small margin. You can't get smaller than that. But it was a liberal riding. And the liberal MP had taken her place in the House of Commons for several months. So to me, that's not the biggest surprise. The fact of the matter is, for better, for worse, Mr. Carney got his majority through the floor crossings. And, you know, I've gone on this before about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's the reality. And the reality is he is now in control.

in charge and we get to measure his success or failure as a result. Yeah, and you know my view about floor crossings too. We've, we've had that discussion. But where Justin says a national unity government, there I might go, hey, you know, I'm in Calgary. And those by-elections didn't do really anything from an Albertan perspective. And I, there's a lot to be done. Absolutely. But, but now the government has a stronger mandate to address what are dueling national unity crises, both in Quebec, which might elect a PQ government, probably one of the most aggressive PQ governments we've seen in quite some time, in an Alberta where we're on the precipice of an independence referendum, right? Like, the idea of having a majority government, no matter who comprises it,

is a really good thing in that context. And in fact, if you go back in time, Canada has only really ever had one national unity government, and it looked just like this. It was Robert Borden, In 1917, he had offered to form a national unity government with Wilfred Laurier. Lurier said no, citing the conscription issue. And he ended up attracting 17 opposition members into the government benches, both from the liberals' labor and some independence. So our only experience with national unity government looks an awful lot like what we have now. And one of the best things about it, because I totally agree with you, Tony.

One of the best things about where we're at right now is that now the opposition has that flexibility, maneuverability to actually oppose without frequently having to sit on their hands and abstain from critical votes to avoid triggering an election. So we're actually, I think, going to get a more vigorous opposition because we have this majority. And we'll be back right after this. You've probably noticed something changing at your favorite restaurant. Maybe it's shorter hours, a smaller menu, or longer waits. Across Canada, restaurants are struggling to find enough staff, not because they aren't hiring, but because there simply aren't enough people to fill the roles. And that matters. Restaurants are where we gather, where we celebrate, where we connect with

friends, family, and our communities. As you hear this, there's probably a restaurant or an owner coming to mind. Behind every one of those moments are many hands working together to make it happen. When some of those hands are missing, everyone feels it. There is a path forward. Practical workforce solutions can help fill critical gaps and keep restaurants open and thriving. Take a minute to visit this website. It's called manyhandswork.ca where you can learn more. That's manyhandswork.ca and see the full story. Let's get to this issue of legitimacy because I do keep hearing people say on the conservative side of the house, obviously,

that there's something not kosher about the way that Mark Carney has. achieved his majority because of the fact that there have been so many floor crossers involved. I think that argument's been kicked around a lot. I want to put a number to you and see whether or not this helps the Carney side of the argument. Matt Jennero's riding did some polling recently. This is in Edmonton. And of course, all the floor crossers say, you know, why'd you go? Well, I listen to my constituents and they like what this guy's doing, so I went over. The last poll I saw in Matt Generos Edmonton riding showed the liberals at 55 percent. Tony, can he argue with some justification?

He's one of the floor crossers. Can he argue with some justification that I really am just doing what the majority of my constituents want me to do, which is to support Mark Carney? You know, a year and a half ago, when the liberals were at 20 percent and Pahliav was at close to 50, all of the liberals should have crossed the floor to the opposition. You know, you can't make that argument. I'm sorry. You have these results at election time. The further point I would like to make on this is I worry that this only enhances and grows the cynicism that people have about politics, that politicians are only in it for themselves, that politicians only want to get to the trough. And that kind of cynical argument that that degrades our democracy is only buttressed and supported by these actions of these foreclose.

crossers. And that's not good for democracy either. Martha, is there a legitimacy issue here? I've said before I'm not a fan of floor crossing. I think it shows a lack of respect for the people who voted for you. But I have real problems with politicians and their responses to polls. That just suggests to me a default to followership as opposed to leadership. And, you know, if Matt's riding ultimately isn't a place that's heavily supportive of the liberals, then maybe Matt's job would have been to say, why is that? And if I had stayed as a

conservative, how would I be able to bring my party to a place that was more in line with what the public were thinking? But I don't like politicians following. I want them to lead. And that's where polls and politicians create real problems for me. The legitimacy piece, you know, look, both parties have accepted floor crossers. I think where I come down is I'm more critical of the individual members of parliament who cross the floor for that very reason of lack of respect for the people who voted for you. And there have been some pretty egregious examples. But if you're the prime minister and you have people saying, I would like to cross the floor, it's a heck of a lot harder to be critical of that because he or she has a really important job to do. And so it's,

for me, that's a bit more nuanced. But I still have real problems with floor crossing. Let me talk about this idea of cynicism, because because I agree that, One of the things we have to fight in politics right now is cynicism, right? It's going to be, you know, cynicism is a big, you know, ball and chain around your neck as you try and rebuild trust in institutions and fix those institutions to earn the trust that they need. So fighting cynicism, I think, is really important. But you know what? Also drives cynicism. This idea that MPs are only trained seals for a party leader, right?

One of the worst things for trust in democracy is the idea that the person you're electing doesn't really matter. they are just a jersey for a team lead. And that's not how our parliamentary democracy works. We elect members of parliament. And this member of the parliament ought to have, I think, the leeway to act, you know, both in their own, you know, judgment and the judgment of their constituents. And I think to some degree, that's what you can argue these floor crossers have done, right? Like they were elected, many of the conservatives anyway, were elected because they thought

they were going to work in government at a really critical time. and to find themselves in the opposition benches, I think it was hard. It's hard to sit on the sidelines as the country goes through one of the most challenging moments of its recent history. So I actually don't think there's anything altogether inherently bad about taking that kind of political opportunism and chasing power as long as you're going to use that power sensibly, wisely, transparently, and in a way that I think is responsive to your constituents. Martha, what do you say to that?

There's a grain of something there because I appreciate the idea of having MPs not betrayed seals. but I also think I go back to the respect for the people who voted for you. They knew who their leader was, right? They ran with Pierre Poliév as their leader. They knew what Pierre stood for. They knew his positions. They knew at the time what Mark Carney stood for. They knew at the time what Mark Carney's positions were.

They still chose to run as members of the Pierre Poliyev team. People voted them, voted them in for that. Whether or not people's views have changed, is not how our democracy works. I'll go back to what are your constituents think. I got asked that all the time when I was in office. And my answer every single time was, I had at the time 136,000 constituents in my writing.

If 25 people rode in or called into the constituency office to have some opinion, there was no way I was going to use that to say, this is what my constituents think. And I therefore have similar concerns about the polls, right? our democracy works on when we have elections, when we have by-elections, it's not perfect. We know it's not perfect. Look, we can talk about the challenges that people in Alberta have at not feeling represented.

That's more a question of proportional representation. That's more a question of how we set up our writings. But that's not how people vote for the person in their writing at the time of the election. Justin and I were both at the Montreal Convention last weekend. And Justin, I will want to get some sort of color and flavor from you in a second about that. But I think one of the things, I think one of the most interesting quotes I heard from all of the different people I spoke to at the convention was a member of parliament named Jennifer McKelvey, who used to be a deputy mayor in Toronto and decided she wanted to run federally in Ajax, just outside Toronto. She ran, she won. And I asked her about all the floor crossings.

Because, you know, on the one hand, yes, the liberals get their majority that way. hand, there's now, you know, there's more competition for the good jobs, you know, in the liberal caucus now that there are some extra people there. So it's a double-edged sword in some respects. And I asked Jennifer McKelvey about this. And Tony, her response was to say, I don't know anybody who's ever quit a job. I know lots of people who quit bosses. How much is all this floor crossing to do with those four conservatives don't like the boss anymore? And that there's a bigger problem here? Well, I mean, I don't think you,

if you are elected as a conservative and you don't like the boss, that's your problem. That, you know, quite frankly, because you're still elected as part of a team. You're still elected as part of a party. It goes beyond who the boss is. And the boss just got an 87% approval rating

from the extra parliamentary party, the delegates at convention. And a honeymoon that seemed to last 10 minutes. Well, but that's still, 87% is still the number. When, when And people outside of the four blocks of Parliament Hill were asked about Pierre Pollyette in our party, they gave him a resounding victory. So, you know, I just think it's the height of selfishness to not take that into consideration and to cross the floor when you were just elected less than a year ago as a conservative member of parliament. That's just my point of view.

Take it for what it is. It's happened. I'm not going to dwell on it. quite frankly, I think we've got to move forward. And I think Pierre's got to move forward as he is. I think that there is in this country a series of latent issues that need to be addressed. People are falling through the cracks. People can't afford groceries.

There's, you know, people who are middle class are going to food banks. People are afraid to walk along their city streets at night. these are issues that Pierre Poliyev has championed in the past, I think he's still got to do it. Because I think, and I make this point, another day has passed since the majority government has been achieved by Mr. Carney. He is one day closer to being turfed out of office. That's the way politics really works. So Pierre Polyev and the conservative team, whoever's on that team has got to focus on that focus on the issues that people care about. I think that there's a series of hidden issues

that are not necessarily number one in the mainstream media or number one on, you know, on social media or what have you, but represents what people are going through, their lived experiences. And I think there's a real opportunity there. Justin, what don't you tell us what you either picked up at the convention or heard before that as it relates to how much of the story behind this majority government is Pierre Polyev's leadership. You know, I'll be honest. I didn't get a really strong vibe. And frankly, the fact that Marilyn Gladu crossed the floor, I actually think is a knock against the idea that there's some inherent problem with Polyev that is pushing away his own caucus. I've been talking to conservative

MPs and staffers and strategists a fair bit over the last couple of months. And what I've heard from a bunch of them is, yes, Pierre Polyev does have a caucus management problem, right? He sidelined his team during the election, right? You'll recall they weren't even allowed to attend all candidates debates, which is just such a fundamentally stupid thing to do. But there's also this feeling that started months ago that Polly have had to work harder

to regain some of that trust, that he had to start meeting one-on-one and in small groups with MPs. He started inviting his caucus over for a little breakfast roundtables at Stornoway. He was already doing some of that work. And from what I heard, there was a little bit of good feedback coming from caucus

they started feeling like they were valued again. Now, you can, I think, argue about whether or not that was enough, but I don't think there is a really coherent narrative there that the four crosses that have happened and more that may come down the line are purely a question of Pierre Pollyas leadership. Again, Marilyn Gladu is a hardcore conservative, right? Every liberal I talk to, every conservative I talk to, said that if they had made a list of every single member of the conservative caucus,

most likely, top to bottom, most likely to cross the floor to the liberals, Maryland Glad to is somewhere at the very, very bottom. Justin, you know what? I talked to Corinna Gould at the convention. She said, I did not have that one on my bingo card. I can tell you that. Exactly. Exactly.

And so you kind of then do have to recognize a few things. You know, one is that Canadians seem to have a little bit of buyer's remorse about picking up a minority when a majority was on the shelf as well. There is a feeling of, oh, hey, listen, things have gotten even worse since we went to the polls. last April, maybe we do need something that is more predictable because after a year of brinksmanship, where we've heard about the possibility of an early election, I think both lawmakers, the markets and Canadians are sitting and going, why in the sweet hell would we want an election right now? And I think this is a case of individual MPs, micromanaging our economy for managing our democracy

for the better. And so at the convention, the vibe I got from individuals, MPs was we're still working on peeling off a few more. I don't think they're trying to win over half of the conservative caucus. We're talking about somewhere between four and eight MPs, both from the NDP and the conservatives. I haven't heard any optimism that any block members are going to cross the floor. We probably shouldn't expect that to come. But I also heard this feeling of, you know, we need stability. We need to be able to recruit talented staff, which has been a struggle for this government from the very beginning. You know, we need to know that we're going to have, you know, two to three more budgets down the line that we can use to deal with this trade war and everything else. And we need to have some spirit of unity.

And it's a phrase the prime minister used multiple times in his address on Saturday. You know, he didn't strike a terribly partisan tone. It was very much collaboration over domination. I think was the line he used partnership over subjugation, you know, unity over division. Aliyev's name or Trump's name once in the whole speech. No, we didn't. There's a couple of days of Americans, especially in the video that began it. But no, it was a pretty conciliatory approach, which is what we should desperately want right now.

And the idea of pulling in a social conservative into your caucus does kind of have the maybe intended effect of ratcheting down that very ideological liberalism that might otherwise imbue that government. And we'll be back right after this. But let me ask Martha this, because Martha, when you, were a member of parliament, you sat in opposition, and so I want to get your sense on how you would have reacted. And again, I'm going back to Mr. Polyev's leadership here. How you would have reacted if the opposition leader of the day when you sat in parliament sent a note out to you and your colleagues who are on the opposition side of the house and said, I'm thinking about moving around the critic roles here. Please send me examples of all the speeches you've given, of all the social media

hits that you've put out there and tell me why you deserve a promotion. How would that have landed? Because that's what Mr. Poliyev did, what, eight, 10 days ago? I mean, I think that suggests a lack of awareness by the leader of the current, the current leader of the opposition of his team. And I think the point that he's starting to do more, if he has to actually ask people to do that, it suggests that you don't really know your team very well. And, you know, that's a, you know, that's a another conversation. So I would be maybe a bit offended by that a little bit, but I would probably still do it just because, right? But I want to go back to a piece one, one. Just before you go back, if you were ticked off at him, though, already, and you got a note like that from him,

might that make you conclude, you know what the hell with this guy? I'm crossing. I don't need, I don't need to put up with this. If he doesn't know me well enough by now, forget it. But that wouldn't make me cross. That I would, we've had this conversation. before it would take. Yep, okay. I would not cross the floor because of that. But to the point, if I got frustrated at my boss, to the comment, people don't leave jobs as much as they leave bosses, these people ran with that boss.

Here probably hasn't changed. He's the same guy, right? I happen to have lived through a few leaders, right? We had Stefan Dion. We had Michael Ignatia, very different people. I still would struggle with the idea of leaving because the boss changed, again, for a whole lot of reasons. But I just want to take, you know, exception to some of what Tony's saying, Pierre Poliav does not have monopoly on being worried about people in their grocery bills or people in the affordability.

Or I'm pretty sure there are an awful lot of liberals in NDP who also feel those issues extremely strongly. And I think the message has been that we feel that overall, of managing the economy, because don't forget, you need a strong economy with strong prosperity with lots of jobs to be able to address the affordability problem. You can't just, you know, I just, look, we have a lot of politicians in Canada who recognize that these are really serious issues. Pierre does not have a monopoly on that. But I think people are just having the general view that maybe the current government is

in a position and decisions made to give them that majority to actually turn things around. Nobody recognizes that nobody doesn't recognize that the economy needs to be turned around. And I think people are giving that vote to Carney right now. So far, you know, on the international tables and metrics, Canada keeps sliding down and down and down and down in terms of affordability, cost of living, general happiness of the population. So he's got a big job to do that. I guess that's my point. He absolutely has a big job, but he's only had a year. And let's not, we will all agree.

Well, they've had 11 years, but anyway, we'll continue that, I'm sure, for the next two or three years. But can I just say something about Pierre Pahliav? Because, you know, there's been a lot of criticisms about the way the previous election was run and the style of that election. You know, people were saying, you know, you need to change your campaign director. So Pierre changes his campaign director. You need to fix the nominations process. He fixes the nomination process. you need to have more interaction.

Did he? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. I mean, Jenny Burn is still very much hovering over the conservative caucus. She's not the campaign director. She's not the campaign director. And the nomination and leadership processes are pretty much the same as they're not. They've always been in the same as the liberal party. There's no open nominations at the conservative party.

They just have like seven nominations in Brampton well before the next election. So he has changed that. And, you know, when people say, well, you need to interact with your caucus more. He has been interacting with his caucus more. You need to celebrate them more on the stage. He's celebrating them more on the stage. So then why send that no doubt? Was that a good way to win friends and influence people? Steve, this is the way it works, okay? The way it works is there's certain members of caucus who are constantly badgering the leader saying, I've done a great job. Please give me a promotion. I deserve this or I deserve that. So maybe he just said, you know what, let's just open up to

everybody, rather than having the 20 people who keep badgering me, let's hear from everybody what they think their strengths and weaknesses are so I can make an informed decision. Is that so terrible as a boss to ask your staff to say, you know, what do you think is going well? What do you think you need to work on? I think bosses do that all the time. Well, I was going to say the fact that it feels carbon copied from what Elon Musk did with Doge should not be lost on anybody, right? Like, where did this idea come from? Maybe you need to stop taking cues from the Americans who are all not too happy with them. You know, this whole thing, you know who connects with the Americans all the time and gets advice?

It's the Liberal Party of Canada. And they don't, they don't ever get any flag. Yeah, from the Democratic progressive side. So that's okay, apparently. Yeah, the one's not uninstalling American democracy. I think that's okay. You know, and we conservatives are, believe me, very sensitive about not getting into bed with the Republican Party of the United States because we know that we'll pay up a price. But the liberals get away with it with their Democratic co-concertive.

conspirators all the time. Justin, that's fair. You've got to give Tony that on the biggest shows that Pierre Palilev has been doing down on the states. And I'm thinking Joe Rogan and then Diary of a CEO. He's been pretty clear, you know, as it relates to not snuggling up to Trump, telling that American audience that we're never going to be the 51st state and, you know, and refusing to criticize the prime minister, quote unquote, on foreign soil. I think you have to give him that one. I do. And, you know, the column I run the star after, after his Rogan appearance, basically said as much. I thought it was overall a pretty good appearance.

And you can't get, like, it does feel like Pierre Pahliav keeps taking cues from Trump and then going, well, how dare you compare me? How dare you compare me? I mean, you know, the one thing that always struck me is that he ran in the last election, promising to gut Canada's foreign aid budget by even more severely than the U.S. government and then doing exactly the same rhetorical flourish and saying, well, all of our money goes to terrorists and drug traffickers. You know, I just, I do want a conservative leader who,

gets more inclined to engaging on policy than engaging on personality. And it felt like every, it feels like every time he gets close to that, he pulls back again. In responding to these four crossers, he started implying that they had done so for bribes saying that, you know, they're going to, I can't remember, basically they're going to get punished somewhere down the line just you wait. Why? Why do you always have to go back to this, this really paranoid well of animosity, especially at this moment? Social media eats it up. They love it on social media. That's the difference between leadership. That's the difference between leadership and non-leadership.

And honestly, Tony? Let's not try to create a narrative that the liberal party is not a negative party because they they throw out negative ads all the time. They have their spokespeople out there chopping conservatives down at the kneecaps. Believe me. They are the masters of negativity. Believe me. I've lived through a lot of that, Tony. I'm not saying they. They aren't. I don't like it in either party. So let me be critical of the one party because I think it's problematic. I'm not saying that by implication, the other party is awesome. What I am saying is that with respect to Pierre, if you have 20 caucus members badgering you all the time, a leader would say, cut the badgering, right? Like a leader would say, I'm managing my team here. I have 20 people who are being obnoxious badgerers, I'm going to tell the obnoxious badgerers to be more of a team player.

I don't need to resort to, okay, let's, you know, get everybody to apply for these jobs. I do think it suggests a lack of knowledge of your team. If he's taking steps and making efforts to get to know his caucus members better, great. I'm trying to be positive, Tony. If I am critical of one, I am not necessarily by implication being positive about the other. Sure. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, I get that. Good point. Okay, let me try this with you, gang. And that is, you know, I'm going to take us back here to 2011 for a second in the province of Ontario. And you may recall then, Dalton McGinty was one seat short of a majority government when he won his third consecutive election that year.

And they had big discussions in the Liberal Party at the time. Do we try to poach somebody from the other side or what do we do? And ultimately, they decided not to. They didn't poach anybody because they said, you know, we could poach one guy and then who knows something else happened. and, you know, we're back to a very strong minority again. I put that background in place to say this. It feels like so many commentators this week in Canada are regarding this majority government now by Mark Carney as somehow permanently fixed in place for the next three years as if nothing could transpire that might affect it. And I'll just say two quick things here.

Number one, you know, Nathaniel Erskine Smith in Beaches, East York, we know probably or certainly hopes he will be quitting his seat soon because he wants to run for a provincial by-election and become the Ontario liberal leader. So Carney's going to lose a seat potentially in the short run. He'll lose a vote anyway, and we'll see if he loses the seat after that. Just quickly, I mean, he's likely to lose a second. Well, at the convention, the rumor that Jonathan Wilkinson, former Trudeau-era Environment Minister, is getting set. to take some diplomatic posting was back on the table. Everyone said that even though he had kind of spurned that offer a few months ago, it seems like it's coming back around. I've asked him for comment. I haven't heard back. But also you're also likely to lose Alexander Bluris, the NDP's lone

member from Quebec, who is, I think made all but clear that he's going to be jumping to provincial politics for the lefty sovereign district Quebec Solidare. So that's one opposition member down, two liberals down. If the prime minister times it right, they all leave their posts. Maybe May, you have the by-elections over June. You come back in the fall probably with plus one because Rosemont, the BD Patry, where I actually live in Montreal, has been tilting liberal for quite a number of years now. And without Belarus representing the NDP, I think it's all but certain. The liberals take it. So that is another plus one for the liberals, which does put you in a up three.

That's not bad. Well, and I don't want to be, I want to be really careful the way I say this. Because, and again, we're going back to the Ontario example in 2011, which is. is what are we going to do? Get a floor crosser to come across. We've got an 89-year-old member of our caucus in Monte Quinter, who's not in great health. I mean, he could die at any time,

and then we're back where we were to begin with. And I'm just saying there are some fairly elderly people in this liberal caucus. I can think of an, I don't want to even say, I'm not going to say any names, because I don't want it to sound like I'm wishing anybody ill. I hope they all live forever.

But this is a majority government that's, yeah, that's that big a majority, and it's not unknown for people. people to die in the House of Commons. Steve, right, could you, could you remind me, and I'm not trying to say that this is what happened in this, in what we're talking about, but what was the scandal in Ontario where liberals made promises to an NDP to cross the floor and he was going to get all sorts of deals or something? What was that again?

In Sudbury. In Sudbury. Yeah. But that wasn't under McGinty. That was under Kathleen Wynn. Okay. They wanted, yeah, it was Glenn Tebow, who was a federal member. They wanted him to quit and run provincially.

He did. He won the by-election. They put him in cabinet as energy minister. And there was, there were charges laid at the time and dealt with in court because the question was, was he offered an inducement to leave the federal scene to come to the provincial scene. And it got very ugly for a while. The actual charge was mostly around the existing liberal candidates stepping aside in the nomination race to allow Tebow.

to jump in. I remember I actually wrote some of the story that broke that whole thing. But listen, you know, the one good thing here, and part of why I'm so frustrated with Polyev for kind of raising the specter, nobody has an iota of evidence that there was any inducement to cross the floor. I'm not casting any. I know you're not saying that, but it is important to draw a line under. You know, it looks like there will be new jobs in, you know, and I mean that in, like, responsibilities for these floor crossers in parliament. I think Matt Jenneru has some assignment around, you know, Alberta economic growth, good. You know, like the idea that we're going to bring floor crosses over

and not just stick them in the back benches to vote yay every once in a while, but actually give them responsibilities to instill some of those, in these cases, conservative priorities into the government or in Lori Lighthouse case, in none of it, northern priorities into this government good. Like, that is what you should. That's the idyllic, I think, version of a floor cross or someone who's crossing the floor to work harder, not take, you know, some wonderful benefit.

I want to share a few more numbers here, particularly with those among us who have been elected in the past. Martha, what's the highest percentage of the total vote you ever got when you ran for parliament? In two of my elections, I lost by less than one half percent. So less than one percent. You know, as they say, like if you're batting 500, not bad in baseball, but it doesn't work out quite that way in politics. When I won, it was. But you know the highest percentage of the total vote you got in? It was actually in 2008, I'm thinking here.

It would have been the by-election in 2008, yeah. 59%. That's a really good number. It was a really good number then. Stand by. Tony, do you know what the highest number, what the highest percentage of the total vote you got in your political career? Well, I'm presuming it wasn't when I won by 0.01% in 2006.

That is correct. That is not the one I was thinking. I think it was like 55% in my right, Steve? 55. Tony, you know, you're being uncharacteristically modest here. It was actually 56%. Well, done. And you did it twice. You got 56% in 2011 federally. Yeah. And you got 56% provincially in 1999. 1999. Does anybody here on this call know what percentage of the total vote, Dolly Begham got in Scarborough Southwest? Oh my gosh. Very close to 70. It was very close to 60. Correct, Justin. She got just like a few tens of

a percentage point south of 70% of the vote. I mean, those are Saddam Hussein-like numbers. Amazing. And Steve, I'm going to put it out there right now before you read it out. The only race I've ever run in for University of King's College student council, I lost by, I think, 11 points. So I'm clearly a contention here. Shame, shame.

Voters should have done better. But Steve, Dali is an NDP. And I think there's some interesting, you guys were all talking about, well, what might happen and, you know, seeds changing or people moving on. We haven't talked about with Avi Lewis taking over the leadership of the NDP. And let's not kid ourselves. Abby is pretty left wing, even for an NDP. We are seeing some concerns with some of the provincial NDP.

My sense is that there are some of the federal NDP, NDP, though they are not nearly as socialist, you know, I mean, really like, sense. up government grocery stores. There are a lot of NDPs who might also look at this as an opportunity as a bit more of a centrist, not keen on that word, but it's easy for shorthand. You didn't mention the possibility of some of the NDP potentially, not that there's a whole lot of them, but it might change. It also might be a factor in the dynamics over the next while. Let me throw out there that, you know, you have seven members of the NPP caucus. Like I said, one's about to leave, you're down to six. I know that there has been liberal efforts to win over

Heather McPherson, who, you know, lost the race to Lewis. My understanding is that thus far, those entreaties haven't gone terribly well. And I don't think there's any others in caucus. You know, most, I think others are actually on side. Let me throw in the added thing for her. If she's, if people are going down the path, I want to do right for my constituents. I, you know, for crossing the floor, I would do better for my constituents. in this current government. Others from Alberta. So there would be an added, wow, this could give another seat to Alberta.

But I think that's an additional factor. It's a good setup too because, you know, who were, you know, who was at all of the receptions in Montreal all over the weekend? A bunch of people who work for the Alberta NDP, right? The Alberta NDP has a bunch of federal liberals in it. You know, what have we heard from recent weeks from both Alberta and Saskatchewan Democratic parties is a feeling like they're not on side with Avi Lewis. They very much see him as a kind of leave it in the ground eco-warier. Actually, Lewis rejects that framing, but I think it's a reasonable

concern from those Western parties. So what you're actually seeing, I don't think you're going to see any NDP floor crossers in Ottawa. I could be wrong. What you might end up seeing is a sort of, you know, symbolic floor crossing at the provincial level with those Alberta NPP parties, basically saying, you know, we have more in common with Mark Carney than we do with, with Havi Lewis. Interesting. One last thing on this. Justin, did you see Navdi Baines at all at the convention in Montreal? I split an Uber with Navd-Bainz, and I can tell you that he has staff who are preparing the groundwork for his leadership run on the Ontario Liberal Party. He says he's thinking about it. I got the impression that he's interested in running. So I think you're going to see

Eric Lombardi was there, you know, the Toronto Urbanist, who also wants to lead the Ontario Liberal party. Nierskin Smith was not there because he was campaigning back in Toronto, didn't want to leave the province. Rob Serjanic was there? Yeah. Rob Serjanic, another Ontario MPP wants to run for the liberal leadership. Well, all I can say is this. If Navdit Baines does take the plunge, I'm going to apply for his job at Rogers. That's a pretty sweet gig. He would leave a very, shall we say, well-remunerated job in the private sector in order to run for a job that I think pays probably 80% less than what he's making right now. So you want to talk, taking one for the team in public service. There you go. There you go. A couple of things left on my agenda here. Number one, I need a good on you from each of you

because that is one of the lovely traditions I like about this program is that we don't just only focus on death and destruction. We actually encourage, in this week's case, three participants to come up with something nice to say about somebody else out there in public life. And Tony, why don't just start us off? good on you this week. Well, Steve, let's talk about Jerry Butts, shall we? Now, you know, not a lot of concertos like Jerry Butts at all. I like him. He's a wear it on your sleeve partisan. I always know where he's coming from. And I respect that. And finally, on the weekend, when you probably saw him running around at the liberal convention, by Saturday night, he dawned on a Habs jersey went to the game, saw Cole Caulfield score his 50th goal.

And the Habs lose. Well, but he's a Habs fan. He's a Habs fan. And he can't be all bad. Jerry Butts, you get my good on you for today. Well, and Jerry was just named chair of Eurasia. Yes, he was. Yes.

Oh, la la. Good promotion for him. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Martha, who gets your good on you? Pierre Polia.

And I know, shock, shock. But I am a big fan of what Mark Carney is doing and his government. I'm a big fan of the efforts to build infrastructure projects more quickly than they've taken in the past. Huge fan of infrastructure that can help us improve our GDP. So infrastructure that can get more of our goods to market, that imports, pipelines, all of that. I have never been supportive of the new $60 to $90 billion high-speed rail project from Toronto to Quebec City. I was on the Transport Committee at the time when I was in office, I think was the 42nd effort to get that going. It is very difficult for me to feel that that infrastructure, relative terms of very small number of people, get to where they were likely going anyway a little more quickly.

when we need goods infrastructure. We need, you know, things that can actually significantly add to our Canadian economy. But politically, that's, you know, has all the roses up, right? It's just, you know, it's great. It's infrastructure. And at a time where it's almost impossible to say no to building infrastructure in Canada, he came out and said that one was not a good one, that that's not a good project, that we shouldn't be pursuing it.

And I thought, wow, you know what? that's a lot of political stuff in Ontario and Quebec that he was willing to push back on. And so, so kudos to Pierre Polair, in the context of I am still a big supporter of all these other projects that just happened to not be one that I'm a fully supportive of. He says we'll save $90 billion by not doing this. So, and with some political risk, as you've pointed out. So, okay.

Justin, who gets your good on you this week? My Godanya, and listen, I think I've been very rosy on the prime minister of this entire chat. I think that probably will not continue in the years to come. So liberals, if you're listening, enjoy it while it lasts. My Godania is to the prime minister, Mercarni, specifically because he's welcoming in his Finnish BFF, Alexander Stubb, to the country this week. And I think it's a wonderful thing. I have his book here.

You saw me pull it up from my laptop a minute ago. Just came out. It's called the Triangle of Power. The reason I think it's wonderful is because Stub is, I think, even more so than Mark Carney, trying to elucidate a new world order, a new view of the world for liberal democracies in a Trump era. And I think he's doing it pretty effectively, pretty thoughtfully. He's the president of Finland. I may have said prime minister with the president of Finland. And I think he's helping to sketch out what a new liberal order looks like in this

weird, weird time. And I think it's good. And I think the prime minister is smart to be setting up that linkage and taking some cues because I think between the two of them, they're going to need a couple more allies. But, you know, we need to start figuring out what this new international liberal bloc looks like. And, you know, books like these meetings like the one happening this week are a good place to start. Good stuff. I like that. Three good, good on you is from you three. Thank you so much. One last item of business here. And that is, you know, we love to keep this program free. But we always appreciate those of you who are watching who throw us a couple of bucks every month just to help us to fray costs. And to that end, I want to thank Patreon supporters

Jerry Capel and Jeremy Gerardi and Rob Groh, who says, don't only thank me. Thank my mom, Isabelle, for inspiring me to stay engaged over the years. I love that. Rob's thanking his mom as well. Thanks to the three of you and the many others who are supporting us through Patreon. You can go to patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast if you want to find out more about what's going on there. at the liberal convention incidentally I did probably oh I don't know six or seven interviews with people who were in attendance there we make all of those interviews available at the patreon site you can listen to them there's some pretty good conversations there if I say so myself about why people attend these conventions what value they have and so on and so forth all of our shows are archived at steve paken.com and with that I'll thank Justin Ling for pinch hitting this week Tony and Martha for being there as always and and say peace and love everybody see you next time