00:07:15.560We knew it. We knew it. And we got her on tape saying, yes, it's all made up.
00:07:23.520Anyway, I know you don't want to comment on, you know, the person, the personal decisions made behind those floor crossers, David.
00:07:29.780But maybe you could comment on the comment that she was trying to push to Canadians that maybe Matt Jenner was riding in Edmonton Riverbend and maybe some of these other ridings in outside of Toronto and in Nova Scotia are starting to lean more towards the Liberals.
00:07:43.840and that maybe these candidates can better represent their constituents as Liberals.
00:07:48.680Well, I'd point to the inverse in terms of when Leona Alice crossed on the Liberals
00:07:52.880as the Conservatives, was she saying the same thing?
00:07:54.420And I can't recall that at all, mostly because it's probably not what she believes.
00:08:00.240But it's quite disingenuous, to be quite honest, to be putting that forward, to be quite honest.
00:08:05.540Well, it's really interesting timing because on Sunday,
00:08:08.360Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that there will be three by-elections in April.
00:08:12.260And so those are for the ones I mentioned off the top.
00:08:15.060Scarborough Southwest, well, Bill Blair was the representative there, but he's gone off
00:08:19.780to become the high commissioner to the UK.
00:08:21.700We also have University Rosedale, which was Chrystia Freeland, of course.
00:08:25.960She infamously went over to begin being an economic advisor to Vladimir Zelensky in Ukraine.
00:08:31.660And then also that tarabon writing, which was really, really interesting.
00:08:36.020Like, you know, this is why everyone has to go out and vote, because sometimes these
00:08:38.880things are won and lost by just like single digit votes. In this case, it was one vote. So just to
00:08:44.100recap that Terrebonne-Quebec riding, basically on election day, the Liberal won by 35 votes.
00:08:53.280But then when they did the validation automatic recount, it flipped back to who had previously
00:08:58.820been the incumbent, Bloc Quebecois MP. But then that triggered a judicial recount. That recount,
00:09:04.960It went back the other way. The liberal candidate won by just one single vote. And it went all the
00:09:09.900way to the Supreme Court and said, no, no, no, you can't have it flip back and forth this many
00:09:13.440times. You can't have someone win by just one vote when it's that, you know, when it's that
00:09:17.600contentious and there's been several votes that have been thrown away, et cetera, et cetera.
00:09:21.000And so that one will go to the Supreme Court and decided that one will also go to the by-election.
00:09:26.100Now, this is an interesting thing, David, because Mark Carney could say, well, wait,
00:09:30.580you know, these four people who crossed the floor, they were actually elected under the other party
00:09:34.780we want to have a democratic will we want to have a pure majority that was actually voted by
00:09:38.780canadians uh why don't we do by elections for all of these ones i doubt he'll do that he wouldn't do
00:09:44.240that because at this you know the current trajectory he's going to get a majority uh without
00:09:48.940having earned one on election night that's not what the canadian public voted for and yet he's
00:09:52.940going to get it but he could if he wanted to he could say let's let's let's redo all of these
00:09:57.600seats and see if i actually get uh a majority the honorable way the the democratic way of being
00:10:03.660elected by the people what do you think yeah but that would also entail risk right because there's
00:10:08.260uh when you talk about elections nothing's ever certain like you can be very high in the polls
00:10:13.400and then that could crash in 20 days or like whatever like the like real events impact this
00:10:18.820stuff and so it becomes especially as an astute businessman himself like this brings unforeseen
00:10:25.140risk that you that is challenging to mitigate for so why would you why would you do that from that
00:10:30.820perspective, regardless of if it's the Democratic thing to do or not. It's so true. I want to sort
00:10:35.960of zoom in on this floor crossing idea, because, you know, it's sort of treated as like a short
00:10:42.040news story, like, okay, this person's crossed the floor, and then we kind of move on. But I think it
00:10:46.500does a lot of damage, right? Like, like, if you just think about the individual campaigns and the
00:10:51.700writing, right, it's like, the individual MP has to cross the floor, right? He has to go every day
00:10:56.500to work and look the other MPs in the eye. Like I crossed the floor. I left you guys as a sense
00:11:01.660of treachery. Also on top of that, his staff, like what happens to the staff? If you're a
00:11:06.440conservative staffer for an MP and then all of a sudden that MP becomes liberal, like is your
00:11:10.560loyalty to the individual, to the party? I don't know if the staff go along with him. You think
00:11:14.680about the volunteers, the campaign offices, all the people who volunteered their time to go doorknock
00:11:19.640for a candidate. And then the other side as well, right? Like if you were a liberal in Markham and
00:11:24.380you were working hard on that campaign to try to beat michael maw and then your candidate lost are
00:11:29.720you expected to just turn around and accept that individual as your mp with open arms and go
00:11:34.320volunteer for him in the next election like there's so many interesting interpersonal issues
00:11:39.180that happen and then the broader picture like i i to be honest david i expected after the matt
00:11:44.880general floor crossing for mark carney to go down in the polls because i would assume that canadians
00:11:49.120would look at this and say you know these are these sneaky backroom deals i don't like i don't
00:11:53.580like the fact that mark carney is going to get a majority without having the democratic will like
00:11:57.740that's not what we voted for in april 2025 that's not the outcome but it was actually quite the
00:12:02.900opposite that after that news cycle carney actually went up in the polls and i think
00:12:07.300canadians again like saw him as a unifying force and saw him as somebody who was able to you know
00:12:13.460make deals with both conservatives and liberals so i'm wondering if you can comment on that for
00:12:18.260Sure. So I think, broadly speaking, you're right, like in politics, when you work together on a campaign or on Parliament Hill, it really is like a family environment, like you guys share an ideology about a vision for what the country should, should look like, and you work extremely hard in order to bring that, that forward.
00:12:35.740On the polling side of things, I think diehards, like the really blue-blooded conservatives or red-blooded liberals that just goes the other way, they're going to be very upset naturally by this happening.
00:12:53.260The question is, how do the undecideds and leaners really perceive it in terms of an actual projection?
00:13:01.720Is it a projection of strength and unity? Is it one of betrayal and other negative emotions? I think that given the data that we're seeing, that it's more on the former. Like, to your point, I think that there's been a lot of outreach in Alberta by Prime Minister Kargi.
00:13:20.580uh great rhetoric like the uh like the mou whether that comes to fruition and realizes real benefits
00:13:28.500for albertans and canadians broadly speaking like that's another debate for another time but like
00:13:33.120the gesture and the overture is something that alberta uh and albertans i think broadly speaking
00:13:38.540would see as a tone shift from the previous uh previous prime minister uh in combination with
00:13:44.540the two. I think that it really leans in more in that direction. Well, it is interesting because
00:13:52.120even Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, right before Mark Carney became Prime Minister, she predicted
00:13:57.880that he was going to be worse than Trudeau because of his net zero, you know, his book, his advocacy,
00:14:03.620his lifelong obsession with basically killing our oil and not using it anymore. And yet when he
00:14:11.240became prime minister and he started meeting with danielle smith she actually changed her tune and
00:14:15.740she said i can work with him this is good and i think that that that does signal you know to to
00:14:20.600to the entire industry to the entire country uh that people in alberta are actually happy to work
00:14:25.840with this person and that they think that maybe they can and that's a good thing i wonder if you
00:14:30.340could comment a little bit on nunavit because i almost think that the northern mps aren't as
00:14:35.540partisan and not as as tied to one party or another like it doesn't really seem uh like it's
00:14:41.700interesting you know a lot of people are digging up these old tweets from uh lori idlut bashing
00:14:47.380the liberals you know saying shame on the liberals like these you know this is just a handful of her
00:14:52.800tweets uh going back to 2018 but you know as recently as 2024 uh basically just saying that
00:14:59.240the liberals are terrible and they cut all the stuff and they're not good we have a clip of her
00:15:04.640from the House of Commons, I believe this was just in September, where she's bashing Carney and
00:15:09.520saying that he's not doing enough to help on food pricing and that people can't afford basic
00:15:14.140necessities. I mean, really, probably very true. But, you know, it's just interesting. I'll just
00:15:20.140play this clip. This is Laurie Idlut, the former NDP MP, who is now across the floor to the Liberals.
00:15:25.380This was her a few months ago, bashing the Liberals in the House of Commons.
00:15:38.940People even feel that every time there is Jordan's principal funding, the Northwest Company increases the price of food even more.
00:15:47.940People are pleading to the Liberals, but all they offer is another study.
00:15:53.940When will this government stop supporting corporate greed and finally help to alleviate poverty?
00:16:01.260I mean, it's kind of a funny critique, you know, another study from the liberals instead of actually doing something.
00:16:07.520But at the same time, you know, what are they really supposed to do if there's one food company up there and, you know, they're charging the prices that they do.
00:16:14.060But anyway, interesting. I'm wondering if you could comment on the on the on the partisan side of politics up north.
00:16:18.540I think up north, the politics are very different culturally from what we have down in the provinces like lower Canada. At their provincial assembly, for example, they don't have political parties, right?
00:16:33.780uh like it's it's a very different culture up there so my question to her would be like what
00:16:39.520did she get out of this uh floor crossing did she get a commitment of additional uh funding for the
00:16:44.920nutrition north program or a complete revamp of the program design uh in addition to all the major
00:16:50.080investments that prime minister carney has also made up in the north recognizing it as a strategic
00:16:54.520asset uh not only from an economic basis but also from the arctic and sovereignty and defense
00:17:00.240space as well. So there's a few moving parts in there. The question would be just what did she
00:17:05.020get out of this for her constituents? Interesting. Well, I want to move on and sort of talk a little
00:17:10.280bit about these three by-elections that are set. I think that, you know, when we're talking about
00:17:14.840Toronto seats, they're always going to be really safe liberal seats, and it almost doesn't really
00:17:19.480matter who they run, but I believe they have some strong candidates that they've identified and that
00:17:23.080they've put in for Scarborough and Rosedale. So maybe the more interesting one to talk about
00:17:28.180is terrible on quebec because it was a bloc incumbent before the election you know the
00:17:33.620liberals just barely won and then they didn't win back and forth and it sort of is more you know i
00:17:40.140mean it could potentially uh be the difference before we were going to say this was the difference
00:17:45.840between a majority or not now it seems like maybe not but with the speaker it might give him just
00:17:50.520like that extra cushion and buffer of having 173 seats so maybe you can help us understand what's
00:17:57.380at stake now in Terrebonne, Quebec, and what will it look like for Kearney to win?
00:18:04.560For sure. So right now, once they get to 172, should they win the two Toronto by-elections,
00:18:11.480it means that the Speaker is a tiebreaker, effectively. So if the opposition votes as
00:18:18.520a complete block on things like confidence motions and whatnot, the Speaker must vote
00:18:23.140to either a uh preserve the status quo or b uh to continue debate and confidence votes followed to
00:18:30.260the latter category uh which means that the government would in fact survive um the question
00:18:36.020at taubon is like the provincial forces uh as you guys know uh there's a provincial election coming
00:18:43.700up with the patrick doing quite well but in the in recent weeks we've seen an uptick in uh provincial
00:18:49.860support for the provincial liberals. How does that manifest itself on the ground? I think also
00:18:54.660by-elections can also differ wildly from the polls themselves. You typically historically have like
00:19:00.900much lower turnout than the generals and that can lead to some far less predictable patterns.
00:19:05.700I think it's really a toss-up and really is going to come down to ground game and levels of
00:19:11.940organization that both parties are able to muster. It's interesting. So we have the 338 federal
00:19:16.980projections for this. See, I think we can show it on the screen for Terrebonne. It shows that the
00:19:22.900bloc are currently polling at 39%, which would be an increase of 7% from the election. And the
00:19:30.440Liberals are right there at 38. And so this is going to be close. Interestingly, a third is the
00:19:36.080Conservatives down there, 14%. I almost wonder if it would be better for the Conservatives not to
00:19:41.240run a candidate in this election so that the sort of federalist vote um or sorry the protest vote
00:19:47.140against the government could go towards the bloc rather than liberals although i guess that could
00:19:51.420go either way because the federalist vote uh could be split between liberals and conservatives i'm
00:19:55.280not sure um but i'm wondering if you can provide any any context like what like who who lives in
00:20:00.960this riding what kind of riding is it is it suburban or is it more like cosmopolitan or
00:20:05.280suburban um and you know like what what what's the ballot box question going to be for these voters
00:20:11.560i think first and foremost the ballot box question is going to depend on which party
00:20:14.840uh like because each party is going to have a different type of ballot question they're going
00:20:19.020to be pushing for uh the prime minister and the liberal party are going to be pushing for
00:20:23.180uh securing a majority uh bloc ibequois more on the nationalist side getting better deal for
00:20:29.240quebec and representing quebec's interests and conservatives historically in quebec have always
00:20:33.480been a strong Quebec and a united Canada, but the ballot question for them becomes more on the
00:20:39.000affordability side and other issues that are adjacent to that as well. The riding itself is
00:20:45.040a suburban outside of Montreal. It's just north of the island of Montreal. So you have a lot of
00:20:50.600commuters. You have a lot of like that kind of dynamic, which makes it obviously different from
00:20:56.800downtown Montreal, which is a notoriously a liberal stronghold. It's very much one of those
00:21:08.540stronger nationalist sentiment in there compared to the island of Montreal. So those forces make
00:21:12.620it a very, very interesting race, to say the least. Interesting. And I wanted to zoom out a
00:21:17.540little bit and look at the federal polling, because I was of the view that Mark Carney was
00:21:21.940going to trigger an election and that we were going to go back to the polls because just how
00:21:26.620well he's polling like it's actually like unbelievable to see how well the nanos poll
00:21:31.040just came out on march 6th of last weekend has the liberals up at 46 percent up to the conservatives
00:21:36.200down at 33 percent and i i mean that's that's a huge shift and if you see how that translates to
00:21:43.920seats um it would be an absolute nightmare for the conservatives like we're talking about a super
00:21:48.020majority for the liberals at 222 221 and the conservatives down to 100 surely that would be
00:21:54.000the end of Pierre Polyev and his career if he were to lose two elections back to back
00:21:59.120in two years. So I was worried that that Carney was going to call an election as much fun as it
00:22:05.040would be. You know, David, we had you as our in-house pollster last time around. We had a lot
00:22:08.620of fun. You know, Crudgev elections are always fun for political junkies like us. But, you know,
00:22:15.340I think that the country just went through that. They don't want to go through it again. And it
00:22:18.180would be bad for the conservatives to lose like this. And but I do think that we probably avoided
00:22:23.700an election because of this dodged a bullet, we can go over to 338, which is the aggregator of
00:22:28.640national polls. And I think it still has the average for the liberals in recent days, all the
00:22:33.840way up at 45 percent. And that would translate almost the same, 201 seats. So what do you think
00:22:39.380my analysis that Pierre Polyev may have dodged a bullet, gained some more time to grow into the
00:22:45.000role of official opposition? And if there's an election in four years, he has a much better
00:22:49.040chance when president trump is no longer in the white house um and maybe the situation has changed
00:22:54.480what do you think i think your analysis is correct uh i think that the thing that really
00:22:58.480is going to help mr paulio there's going to be time because there's a lot of uh big promises
00:23:03.360grand promises and uh and rhetoric that's coming from prime minister kearney uh it sounds great
00:23:08.800uh to be quite honest especially on like a foreign policy front uh but the question is does it does
00:23:14.960This materialized into real benefits for Canadians at the end of the day, like execution on this when you've made such grandiose promises is something that is extremely important.
00:23:24.660And just given the factors that he's facing right now, like making those grand promises of like, I'm the only one that can deal with President Trump and stuff like that.
00:23:32.960We have the Kuzma review coming up very soon.
00:23:35.780So there's going to be events throughout this that is going to make it challenging for him to be able to really put out the, like, to really match the rhetoric with action and results for Canadians.
00:23:48.300And I think that that's what the actual time for Mr. Polly have actually become very favorable.
00:23:54.660Also, if it becomes a de facto majority, and we know that we're going to be, it's going to be three years until the next election, it gives more time to planning.
00:24:03.080Like staff are not sitting at the edge of their seat, not staff, but also MPs.
00:24:07.680You're not always in heightened, alert, ready to go mode.
00:24:12.020Like you can actually take time, step back, create a fulsome narrative plan platform, like all that stuff in a much more comprehensive way that could yield stronger benefits in an election down the road.
00:24:26.000Yeah, it's hard to say, right? Because it's like, man, I think that the conservatives deserve a chance to govern. Like we've had 10 years of liberals. Yes, Mark Kearney is very different than Justin Trudeau. I think he satisfies some Canadians desire for change. It sounds different, but it looks the same, right? We still have the same out of control immigration. We still have crime. We still have the revolving door, prison systems that let so many of the bad guys out, right? Our economy hasn't meaningfully gotten better.
00:24:54.080I like I like I'm not seeing any I'm hearing changes it looks different sounds different
00:24:58.280but I'm not I'm not seeing them yet and I wonder if it's sort of just a matter of time before
00:25:02.940Canadians realize that the the new guy is the same as the old guy um or whether or not maybe
00:25:07.720Mark Carney will surprise us all and actually start governing in a very meaningfully different
00:25:12.480way than uh Justin True did and then his liberal party did what do you think well and there's also
00:25:18.160like an interesting historical example that we can point to like George Bush senior who was renowned
00:25:22.200as a foreign policy expert he uh led the u.s efforts on the reunification of germany the
00:25:27.000fallout of the breakup of the soviet union like massive u.s posturing uh and foreign policy
00:25:32.360development in the changing new world order but then when he went up against uh president clinton
00:25:37.160for the president for the the next election like if you look at a lot of the academic analysis and
00:25:42.200uh and political analysis uh during that like the attention on foreign uh made way for some of the
00:25:49.160of the domestic priorities to really fall by the wayside. And that really caught up to him. So the
00:25:54.080question is, are there parallels between those two situations? And I think that that's where like the
00:25:58.860time and the actual results that we need to see from the big, great sounding promises that Prime
00:26:07.960Minister Carney's putting forward. I think that that's what the big difference is. And I think
00:26:12.340that's where the time and other aspects really play more to Mr. Pauli's strength or his opportunities
00:26:21.000more so than Prime Minister Carney. Wow, 100%. So interesting. All right, David Murray from
00:26:27.520One Preservation, always appreciate your time and good to see you back on the show. Great to be with
00:26:31.560you. All right, thanks for that analysis. All right, folks, that's all the time we have for
00:26:35.100today. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll be back again tomorrow on Candice Malcolm's
00:26:37.700Kenneth Malcolm Show. Thank you and God bless.