Juno News - November 05, 2025
Liberal Majority? Budget day is hijacked by Conservative floor-crossing… more to come?
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
190.95952
Summary
Candice Malan and her friend Brian Lilly break down the impact of a Conservative floor crossing in the House of Commons, and whether or not it may have set the stage for an early election. They're joined by the host of the show, Lanyadoo Unleashed, Brian Lylee.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:05.520
Folks, there is so much going on in Ottawa right now, so much in the political lane that
00:00:11.440
Obviously, yesterday was a huge day with the budget, lots of speculation as to whether
00:00:15.520
this may trigger an early election, whether we may be back with, you know, potentially
00:00:23.920
I don't think that that's really the conversation anymore because the entire day was sort of
00:00:28.160
hijacked rather than talking about the budget, the spending, the sort of out-of-control Trudeau
00:00:34.300
Instead, the news switched, and we started talking about floor crossings and whether or
00:00:37.940
not maybe Mark Carney might have the ability to scoop a majority government out of a minority
00:00:42.940
by having a couple of conservatives shockingly cross the floor, really not the way that we
00:00:49.880
And so to help me break this all down, I'm very pleased today to be joined by my friend
00:00:53.380
and political commentator, one of the best in the country, Brian Lilly, who writes
00:00:58.140
for the Toronto Sun, and he's a host of Lily Unleashed, no better person to help us understand
00:01:10.100
I mean, look, for political nerds like you and me, budget day is, you know, whoo, budget
00:01:16.680
We get to look at numbers and we got to figure out what the government's doing.
00:01:25.760
It makes our job easier when there's a lot to talk about.
00:01:28.400
And I, you know, it went with the drama of the day yesterday because all of the journalists
00:01:33.960
So when there's a budget, the government gives you an advanced copy of it.
00:01:37.980
They take away your phone so that you can't scoop them before the actual budget is read.
00:01:42.500
And so a lot of journalists were sort of caught flat footed by the news that ended up kind
00:01:46.500
of overwhelming the news of the day, which was this floor crossing.
00:01:50.920
So why don't we start with the budget and what the day was supposed to look like, which
00:01:55.460
is that Mark Carney tabled a $78 billion deficit, the largest deficit outside of the pandemic
00:02:04.600
And so, you know, for all of those people out there who voted liberal because they thought
00:02:08.140
they were going to get sort of a blue liberal or more of a fiscally conservative government,
00:02:13.860
I think this idea that Mark Carney came in, that they're going to invest.
00:02:17.340
They're going to invest, saying the same thing we've been hearing for a decade, Brian.
00:02:20.940
You know, when you're investing, you really expect there to be an ROI and some kind of
00:02:29.240
I think the second to worst in the OECD, declining GDP per capita, not good numbers in
00:02:36.420
And yet, you know, we're back to the same solutions, which is just spend more money and hopefully
00:02:45.920
It was a missed opportunity, a great disappointment.
00:02:49.740
This was a budget that was, at the beginning, they were saying it was going to be an austerity
00:02:54.780
Then they moved to, we're going to spend less so we can invest more.
00:02:59.000
So we're going to suck and blow at the same time.
00:03:01.380
Then they were talking about generational transformation.
00:03:04.300
Look, Candace, I did not vote for the Mark Carney liberals.
00:03:07.840
I did not support what they were putting forward.
00:03:10.860
But when you hear a prime minister saying that we need to think big, act bigger, and move
00:03:15.760
at speeds not seen in generations, that we need generational transformation of our economy
00:03:31.740
It wasn't a generational transformation budget.
00:03:37.160
There are some good things in there, and I'm happy to talk about those, but let's talk
00:03:40.820
about this idea that so many in the media were putting forward saying, well, spending's
00:03:49.880
Look, there's one page that I go to in every budget, and I don't care who's in power.
00:03:54.420
I go to a page that is always headlined with a table called the summary statement of transactions.
00:04:00.940
For any of you watching, you can pull up the budget online in a PDF form, control F, summary
00:04:10.020
This will tell you the basis of what you need to know, and then from there, you go out and
00:04:13.940
you find all the goodies that they're either trying to give you or hide from you.
00:04:18.220
But the summary statement of transactions is, what's the deficit?
00:04:29.720
The annual spending deficit is up dramatically, $78.3 billion.
00:04:34.900
Now, in the previous budget that was released a year and a half ago, it's been that long
00:04:39.960
since we had a budget, the deficit for fiscal year 25-26 was projected to be $38.9 billion.
00:04:47.100
So the actual deficit is more than double what they projected in the last budget.
00:04:56.840
Well, last December, they released the fall economic statement, the one with the, was
00:05:01.200
it $61 billion deficit that Christy Freeland resigned over?
00:05:05.160
That projected that this fiscal year, we would have a $42 billion deficit.
00:05:17.560
It's $507 billion this year, down about $4 billion.
00:05:30.040
Now, we've been hearing Mark Carney say for a long time, Justin Trudeau was increasing
00:05:42.100
And they've got these projections that, you know, five years from now, they'll have program
00:05:51.080
I don't believe any government's five-year projections.
00:06:01.080
And, you know, in fairness to them, it's very hard to predict what the economy will be doing
00:06:08.800
Sure, it's a worthwhile exercise, but I don't hold them to it.
00:06:11.800
And none of them ever meet it, especially the liberal governments.
00:06:17.880
And then the public debt charges, $55.6 billion.
00:06:23.180
$55.6 billion just to service the interest on the debt.
00:06:29.900
That is more than the federal government is spending on the Canada health transfer by a
00:06:35.000
The health transfer is going to grow to $65 billion over the next five years.
00:06:41.400
But the public debt charges are projected to grow to $76 billion.
00:06:45.600
So this gap in what we spend on health care compared to what we spend on interest on the
00:06:55.380
Because the more we spend on public debt charges, the less we have to spend on the debt.
00:07:04.400
We don't pay taxes so that we can send money to bankers that are holding our debt.
00:07:12.720
And, you know, it's one thing to get it wrong five years out because the economy really grew
00:07:16.720
or maybe there's a recession that you couldn't help.
00:07:18.820
But, you know, one year out, you'd think that they would have more accurate numbers.
00:07:21.740
And I get that there was technically a change of government, but it's still the liberals.
00:07:24.940
There's still a lot of the same people overlapping.
00:07:27.480
And so to get it off by that much, I want to play a quick clip of Prime Minister Mark Carney
00:07:35.700
And he says that the federal budget was prudent, that it managed to strike a responsible, pragmatic,
00:07:44.140
We've put forward to the House a plan that meets the moment, that manages the federal finances
00:07:54.600
in a prudent, responsible, pragmatic way, gets spending down and creates this prospect
00:08:01.120
of investment on a scale that we haven't seen for generations.
00:08:06.840
Now, I want to just juxtapose that by saying what Pierre Pauly, a conservative leader, had
00:08:11.220
to say in question period, which was slamming this government, saying it is the most costly
00:08:16.060
and largest budget deficit in the history of our country outside of the pandemic.
00:08:21.940
Let's play that clip of Pauly in question period yesterday.
00:08:24.660
The liberals have introduced the most costly and largest budget deficit in history outside
00:08:32.060
The cost of this liberal budget will drive up the cost of food, housing and everything
00:08:38.920
And the Prime Minister has broken every single promise he made just seven short months ago.
00:08:47.900
He delivered nearly an $80 billion deficit, $16 billion bigger than he promised and twice
00:08:58.500
He's spending $90 billion more, costing $5,400 per family in Canada.
00:09:06.700
And that $90 billion, to the Prime Minister's heckles, is above and beyond the promised
00:09:15.860
And if he doesn't find them, it will be over $100 billion in brand new spending.
00:09:19.960
This costly budget forces Canadians to spend more on debt interest than on health care
00:09:29.600
That means every dollar the Canadians pay in GST will go to bankers and bondholders instead
00:09:38.020
So, Brian, I want to just mention a couple of other things that are tucked away in this
00:09:42.940
budget, including that the budget earmarked nearly $140 million for refugees and former
00:09:49.480
workers in order to get them onto a permanent residency fast track.
00:09:54.380
So, $120 million of new spending over the next four years, plus an extra $20 million to just
00:10:00.980
process, to spend, to process all of the basically backlog of applications that are sitting there
00:10:07.380
one-time measure to accelerate the transition of up to 33,000 work permits into permanent
00:10:13.860
So, I think what we're also seeing is an increase in immigration.
00:10:18.220
It seems to me, Brian, that the way that they want to grow the economy is by growing the
00:10:22.360
government, the size of government is what they always do.
00:10:24.520
The best way to boost GDP is just to spend more money from the government.
00:10:28.840
And then to also artificially boost our population, bring more people into the country, regardless
00:10:34.160
of whether we have a place to house them, whether there's actual jobs for these people,
00:10:39.440
It just seems like, again, the same old stuff from this liberal government.
00:10:44.500
Well, on the immigration front, look, I'm the child of immigrants.
00:10:47.780
I grew up in a neighborhood full of immigrants, but there were people that followed the rules.
00:10:51.440
The liberals took the most successful immigration program in the Western world, in the developed
00:10:56.120
world, and destroyed it, including by encouraging people to come here and claim asylum when they
00:11:05.980
And I get wanting to move to another country for a better way of life, a better standard of
00:11:17.560
They have to put these measures in place because the backlog is so large and because it's creating
00:11:24.560
And so they're trying to fix their own mess by creating another one.
00:11:31.180
They grew the GDP of the country for several years by just flooding the country with more
00:11:37.460
To use the term that Justin Trudeau eventually used, bringing in people faster than we can
00:11:48.440
A couple of good things that I'll say about the budget is, and these are not generational
00:11:53.900
transformations, which they should be, but this super deduction.
00:11:59.440
And they're trying to say that that gives Canada the lowest marginal effective tax rate
00:12:08.600
Well, for one year, if you invest a ton of money, you get a one-year tax break.
00:12:13.600
The rest of the countries have moved to lower taxes, period.
00:12:17.840
We should be looking at total tax transformation, reducing the number of income tax brackets,
00:12:27.900
They got rid of the 10% luxury tax on things like planes and private planes and yachts.
00:12:35.560
And folks might say, well, what does that matter?
00:12:37.540
Well, a company like Bombardier, which is now just making, they're no longer on the
00:12:47.740
They make jets that also work for the military.
00:12:50.200
But they haven't sold a single private jet in five years in Canada because the liberals
00:12:59.200
There are thousands of people that make good money building these planes in Mississauga,
00:13:08.340
It doesn't bring in that much money, but it hurts the economy.
00:13:12.080
We had one boatmaker in Kelowna pack up shop and move to Texas because he just said, I can't
00:13:20.660
I'll move to where I can sell boats and where I can make them.
00:13:25.880
There are things they could have done that didn't do.
00:13:28.300
And then, you know, there are silly things they did, like an extra 150 million to CBC and
00:13:33.980
a promise to try and get us into the Eurovision Song Contest.
00:13:37.880
I don't know about you, Candice, but I am really excited for Canada's entry into the Eurovision
00:13:44.360
I don't know if you know much about Eurovision, Brian, but the entire thing is a debacle.
00:13:52.160
I actually was backpacking through Europe, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago.
00:13:56.000
And my friend that I was backpacking with was like, hey, let's go to Eurovision.
00:13:59.040
So we bought tickets who were in Serbia and it was just an absolute circus.
00:14:06.500
It's taken seriously by the people who are part of it.
00:14:10.460
They have all kinds of Middle Eastern countries and non-European.
00:14:26.940
I think, you know, 20 years since anything relevant.
00:14:33.440
So this is what the Conservatives wanted to be talking about yesterday.
00:14:36.300
They released a pretty clever ad that was sort of going viral on X and social media.
00:14:41.660
They released this full house-style parody mocking the Liberals for basically just sounding
00:14:45.860
exactly like they've always sound with this lie that they say, we're not spending your
00:14:56.480
But anyway, I'll play you just a part of this ad from the Conservative Party released
00:15:05.700
Why is the only Liberal plan to spend, spend, spend?
00:15:11.840
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal plan is to invest, invest, invest.
00:15:16.000
It is time to invest in the future of our country.
00:15:25.440
It has never been more appropriate to invest in the future of our country.
00:15:29.500
So I had a good chuckle and laughed about that, Brian.
00:15:30.940
That's why our economic plan, it is really at its heart about investing in Canadians.
00:15:40.780
That's what we're proposing to Canadians, generational investment in our future, man.
00:15:51.120
So I had a good chuckle and laughed about that, Brian, but really the whole thing was overshadowed
00:15:58.460
by the news of a Conservative MP crossing the floor.
00:16:01.820
I'm sure this is the last thing that Pierre Polyev wanted to deal with yesterday.
00:16:05.180
But news broke that Conservative MP Chris Dantremont had left the party to join the Liberals.
00:16:10.140
And interestingly, this news broke during the budget lockup by an American outlet, Politico.
00:16:15.500
They posted a scoop basically saying that there was rumors and that he said that he might,
00:16:22.780
And, you know, as soon as that happened, I mean, you have the inside story, Brian.
00:16:26.220
So why don't you sort of tell us how it unfolded?
00:16:29.020
Well, Chris's name had been floating around for a while, along with others like Jean Godin
00:16:38.300
Dominique Vien from Belle Chasse-Lévis, used to be Stephen Blaney's writing just south of Quebec City.
00:16:44.800
And these names kept floating around and Dominique had said, no, no, no, no, it's not going to happen.
00:16:51.840
And, you know, Chris just a few weeks ago was criticizing the Carney government for spending too much
00:16:57.100
and said, if you if you don't get it under control, things are only going to get worse.
00:17:00.300
And then on the day of the budget crosses the floor as they release a bigger spending budget.
00:17:09.100
As you said, most of the media is in the lockup and there were two names on the byline.
00:17:14.620
I'm only going to remember Mickey, uh, the Jujic.
00:17:20.380
And they're based in Ottawa and they cover Parliament Hill.
00:17:24.300
They got the whole newsletter playbook thing going and they scooped everyone while everyone
00:17:31.100
They release it like just before question period that this is happening and everyone's looking
00:17:38.780
Um, the, uh, you know, conservative leadership was scrambling.
00:17:45.020
Cause they hinted that there were, uh, you know, Dominique Vien has since put out another
00:17:51.580
I listed her in my own sub stack, my newsletter yesterday, uh, as someone that whose name keeps
00:17:57.340
coming up, but the liberals have also been pushing ridiculous names like Michael Chong.
00:18:01.500
Michael Chong is never crossing the floor to the liberals.
00:18:06.540
And, you know, I know folks are saying Chris Dantremont, well, he was always a liberal.
00:18:11.900
This is a guy who has been involved in federal and provincial conservative politics in Nova
00:18:17.100
Scotia going back decades at the federal and provincial level.
00:18:20.780
Uh, he'd been in, uh, I believe he was in the, the Nova Scotia PC government before.
00:18:26.060
This has shocked a lot of people in the conservative movement in Atlantic Canada.
00:18:33.100
The party didn't back him or for being speaker or deputy speaker.
00:18:37.580
And well, he had his nose out of joint over that.
00:18:43.020
Was he completely in line with where Pierre Polyev is maybe, maybe not, but I, you know,
00:18:49.340
people shouldn't just dismiss him as saying, well, he was always a liberal.
00:18:52.220
Anyway, he wasn't, he was a long time conservative and he moved.
00:18:56.780
Does the party need more difficult to understand then, Brian?
00:19:00.700
Like, I don't understand someone who spends her career, spends her life working for a conservative
00:19:05.020
movement, believing in conservatism broadly, choosing to join that party, volunteer.
00:19:09.180
And then, and then changing all of a sudden over something personal.
00:19:13.020
Like I didn't get the position in the government that I wanted.
00:19:15.340
Rick Perkins, a former conservative MP from Nova Scotia posted on X that he had been speaking
00:19:22.620
with Don from on the weekend, who was complaining that he'd only won by 1% in the last election.
00:19:32.380
Well, maybe he had an epiphany and thought, well, if I'm a liberal, I'll get reelected next time.
00:19:41.020
These tend to be stories that last a day or two, and then they go away.
00:19:45.500
And, you know, whether it's Belinda Stronick, Bill Casey, Wajid Khan, Jenica Atwin, there's
00:19:56.380
The biggest one, of course, was Belinda Stronick,
00:19:58.540
in part because she was dating Peter McKay, deputy leader at the time.
00:20:02.460
I want to go to Ian Brody, former chief of staff, to Stephen Harper.
00:20:08.700
He said, this is the second most consequential floor crossing in my lifetime, solidified the
00:20:12.700
new conservative party, began turning the clock on the Martin government, talking about what
00:20:17.980
you're referring to, which was Belinda Stronick crossing the floor from the conservatives over
00:20:27.340
It says, hailed by reporters at the time as a coup for the grits, turned out to be anything
00:20:31.580
but because, of course, Martin's government didn't last much longer.
00:20:35.900
So, you know, if you think about the momentum, it seemed like Belinda Stronick jumping ship
00:20:40.140
and going to the liberals was going to secure Paul Martin and maybe, you know, a decade of
00:20:45.660
And then lo and behold, not too much later, everything flipped, everything fell apart.
00:20:50.380
And by 2006, Stephen Harper was prime minister.
00:20:53.260
So, I mean, if he's drawing that parallel, I'll take that.
00:20:56.300
If this seems like a win for Carney and then in the future, it'll turn out that, you know,
00:21:03.020
What did you make of Brody's comments there, Brian?
00:21:05.740
Well, so I was on the hill at that time, as was was Ian running Stephen Harper's office.
00:21:11.740
And, you know, in the spring of 2005, there was a real attempt to try and take down the
00:21:17.900
Martin government and the block and the NDP joined with the conservatives.
00:21:21.340
But then, you know, Belinda Stronick crossed the floor.
00:21:24.060
Chuck Cadman made his famous decision to vote with the government for his own personal reasons.
00:21:31.340
And it really felt like the wind was out of the sails.
00:21:34.140
OK, Paul Martin's going to stick around for a long time.
00:21:39.820
But I think May 2005, the government fell in November 2005.
00:21:47.260
And in late January 20 2006, Stephen Harper became prime minister and was there for a long time.
00:21:53.660
I've been saying for a while now that Mark Carney and his government can go one of two ways.
00:21:59.820
If they deliver, then Canadians will reward them.
00:22:03.100
You know, if they turn around the economy, if they figure out a way to calm the waters.
00:22:07.980
I mean, we are dealing with tariffs and trade uncertainty, and that is leading to economic
00:22:14.140
If they find a way to calm the waters and turn things around and they deliver, then there's
00:22:21.020
a good chance they'll stick around for a long time.
00:22:23.340
But what is Mark Carney been doing since he became prime minister?
00:22:29.420
And you and I are not alone in describing the budget this way.
00:22:32.940
Mainstream media is describing the budget that way, which is very problematic for him.
00:22:38.780
He was asked by the Globe and Mail at his news conference on Wednesday morning,
00:22:44.860
And like he literally did that in the air and then said, no, he hadn't.
00:22:52.140
Like you keep saying you're going to get a deal.
00:22:56.780
You keep saying that you're going to do a transformational budget.
00:23:00.300
Eventually, if he doesn't deliver, he will become the next Paul Martin.
00:23:04.220
And what liberals are looking at right now and thinking, this is our savior.
00:23:08.860
We're going to be in government for a long time, will quickly fall apart.
00:23:12.380
Again, if he delivers, Canadians will reward him.
00:23:15.500
If he doesn't, I think in the new year, they're going to start turning on him.
00:23:19.180
Well, it's such an interesting perspective because it was a Hail Mary, right?
00:23:23.020
Like the liberals were totally written off and there was no chance they're going to form
00:23:27.580
And so you can imagine when he was recruiting candidates across the country, everyone thought
00:23:31.260
that the conservatives were going to form a massive majority government because the
00:23:38.220
Canadians put some trust in him, but it's a high stakes situation, right?
00:23:40.700
It's like we trust you at a crisis, but you better deliver.
00:23:43.820
And so far, Brian, I don't think that he is delivering.
00:23:46.540
Thanks so much for your time and your analysis.
00:23:48.460
Always appreciate your opinions and ideas and your time, Brian.
00:23:53.580
I want to continue talking about the floor crossings and about this MP, Chris Dantremont.
00:23:58.140
I'm pleased to be joined by one of my favorite guests here on the Candace Malcolm show, Wyatt
00:24:03.100
Wyatt is a political commentator and founder of the National Telegraph.
00:24:12.380
So what, I mean, what do you think of floor crossings?
00:24:14.460
I think this is one of the things that Canadians hate the most.
00:24:17.100
I saw Bill Canada CEO, Lucy Hargraves, who is a federal liberal, she posted online showing
00:24:22.540
a 2018 Angus Reid poll saying that four in 10 Canadians think that floor crossing should
00:24:26.860
be banned and that anyone who crosses the floor should have to sit as an independent.
00:24:33.260
People in Quebec are most opposed to floor crossing.
00:24:35.900
So I don't think Canadians like this idea that you can do this.
00:24:39.500
It almost seems like cheating, especially when we're this close to a majority, right?
00:24:45.740
Like there's three, he's Mark Carney, Prime Minister Carney is three seats away from forming
00:24:51.500
And you're thinking, you know, maybe he can find three MPs out there.
00:24:55.180
He only needs two more and then throw Elizabeth May in there.
00:24:57.980
And all of a sudden, you know, the tables could really flip.
00:25:02.780
Well, maybe the most dangerous outcome is that just one more crosses the floor.
00:25:06.860
And then the kingmaker ends up being Elizabeth May for a couple of years.
00:25:10.780
You know, I think we all get chills thinking about that.
00:25:13.660
Like, you know, I can tell that we just passed Halloween a little bit ago, knowing that with
00:25:18.860
that possibility in the air, the one thing I would say right off the bat is I think that
00:25:23.420
the reaction to Chris D'Entremont leaving may actually be the thing that prevents anyone
00:25:29.580
else from leaving, because I think that when they realize that they're actually not going to
00:25:34.620
get the sort of easy win the next election that they think they're going to get because of how
00:25:39.260
much they're going to activate conservatives in their own riding, they may think twice.
00:25:43.740
This is actually something my friend Chris, not Chris D'Entremont, but Chris from the
00:25:48.220
Great Canadian Bagel Channel pointed out that he's whining about only winning his riding in
00:25:57.340
But if you look at the history of that riding, that was an outlier result in part because the
00:26:02.860
NDP completely collapsed, as well as the Liberals having the most friendly news cycle to run on back
00:26:09.740
in April, they're not going to do as well in the next election in what has always been considered a
00:26:16.140
very default conservative riding, that being Acadianapolis. A lot of small fishing towns,
00:26:22.220
a lot of working class people. It got close just because of the news cycle and the elbows up stuff.
00:26:27.740
I don't think D'Entremont is going to have a very easy time being reelected. If anything,
00:26:31.820
I could actually see the guy getting completely smashed. And yes, this all does seem petty.
00:26:37.340
On the issue of floor crossing in general, though, there are two different floor crossings in my mind.
00:26:42.860
There is this one that is petty. It's really just for personal reasons. It has nothing ideological about
00:26:48.940
it. It's going to tick off your constituents. And there are some forms of floor crossing I'm okay with.
00:26:54.620
If a party or a leader just decides that we no longer stand for the things that we said we did
00:27:00.540
in the election. And then you said, well, I can't be here anymore. And you left. That's fine with me.
00:27:05.740
I think that this shouldn't be banned. I think that the social consequences that we're likely going to
00:27:11.340
see for D'Entremont in the next election are the proper consequences. Well, it does seem like career
00:27:17.180
suicide. And I was just talking about this with Brian Lilly. It's like, you know, if you spend your whole
00:27:21.340
career and maybe your life, like I know in Eastern Canada, a lot of people are the party that their
00:27:25.900
parents and grandparents and like their community and their family are a part of, like they don't
00:27:29.100
necessarily choose the parties. It's like their family is a conservative or their family is a liberal.
00:27:33.260
It just seems like a very drastic step to take. And it wasn't like, like the thing that I was hearing
00:27:38.060
from D'Entremont wasn't, oh, Pierre Polyev is too radical and he's too right wing. Like it wasn't really about that.
00:27:44.140
It was really just pragmatic and like, I'm mad because I didn't get this deputy speaker thing that
00:27:48.460
I wanted. I want to play a clip of this MP, Chris D'Entremont, um, saying basically just explaining
00:27:55.820
why, uh, sorry, this is, this is a clip from late September, um, saying that his constituents were
00:28:00.700
hurting under the Kearney government, warned that the liberal deficit would make things worse.
00:28:06.380
Instead of delivering relief, this government delayed its budget. So we're still waiting for a budget.
00:28:11.340
We haven't seen a budget in a year and a half. Why? Because it's projecting an over 92 billion dollar
00:28:17.420
deficit. That's a monstrous, irresponsible burden on future generations. We'll hear it. We'll hear it.
00:28:24.540
I'm sure maybe the questions that they're talking about a generational investment. But Mr. Speaker,
00:28:30.460
what it really is, is a generational debt that my kids, their kids and their kids' kids are going to
00:28:37.580
have to try to pay. I don't understand how you can say that about a liberal government and then join
00:28:41.660
them less than a month later. Anyways, uh, that was him just maybe a couple weeks ago. Here is Mark
00:28:46.620
Kearney, uh, speaking in Ottawa, thanking Chris D'Entremont for crossing the floor, calling the move
00:28:52.060
exceptionally valuable as he would. Here's that clip. I'd like to thank Chris D'Entremont, uh, the member for
00:28:58.620
parliament for Akedzie Annapolis. I'm honoured to welcome him as the newest member of our government
00:29:07.900
caucus. Chris's decision to join the government caucus at this crucial moment for our country
00:29:19.820
So it seems like a solid move to me. Uh, there have been a lot of rumors and Brian mentioned
00:29:25.260
this and he, he wrote about a couple of other sort of Quebec area, uh, MPs. There was also a
00:29:30.860
crazy rumor spurring around. I don't want to, you know, give a hype to rumors that are unproven. Um,
00:29:35.900
but I did hear a couple of rumors, people texting me asking about Edmonton MP, uh, Matt Jenneru, um,
00:29:42.060
and potentially him cross the floor. That seems bizarre to me. I've known about Matt for a while and he
00:29:46.460
doesn't really seem like the type that would. Um, but for some reason, this, this rumor has been,
00:29:50.940
um, circulating while, um, global news reporter, Sarah Ryan sort of put that rumor to rest, uh,
00:29:57.500
on social media. She said that Edmonton MP Matt Jenneru's office tells me that despite the rumors
00:30:01.980
being circulated in Ottawa, MP Jenneru is not crossing the floor, adding that he is not leaving
00:30:07.660
the conservative party. So, um, that's a bit of an odd one. Uh, what, what do you make of that rumor?
00:30:13.420
And, and do you think that any more MPs will cross the floor? Um, I, I think that there could be,
00:30:19.420
I, I would not put it past being a coin toss. If another person leaves, do two more people leave?
00:30:25.180
I think that's unlikely because again, they are going to see the political consequences
00:30:28.860
for Chris Dantremont. Yes. In theory, he can think that the writing is going to keep going more liberal.
00:30:34.140
And if he crosses, it's easier next time, but it's one of those things where by trying to get,
00:30:39.660
you're trying to grasp what you want. In fact, you are not, it's going to slip through your fingers
00:30:43.420
because by doing this, it's going to activate every single conservative organizer in the area
00:30:47.980
to get rid of them. Uh, the, the funny thing with Matt Jenneru, the, uh, the, that's rumor there,
00:30:53.340
it actually kind of started from him having a X account that he doesn't really post on. And so his
00:30:59.500
posts were protected. Like he has a private account, you know, you can tag them on there. He probably uses
00:31:04.380
it to just monitor what's going on, but he doesn't like social media. I know tons of politicians who
00:31:09.660
hate social media. Uh, sometimes even younger politicians just don't like to use it. And
00:31:14.780
because Chris Dantremont, right before he made this decision, privated his account, that's what made
00:31:21.100
people assume that Matt had done the same move, even though that seems to have been something he did
00:31:25.900
well before Chris ever did something. Well, and I, yeah, I, the speculation also was that his, um,
00:31:34.060
his bio just says member of parliament doesn't say conservative member of parliament. So people are
00:31:37.500
just like reading in and trying to be a stealth reporters, but yeah, no, um, no word on that and
00:31:43.500
no verification. And, you know, I think it was a bit of probably of a disappointing news day for
00:31:47.660
Pierre Polyev because he thought, you know, this budget is a disaster, this huge runaway deficit.
00:31:51.820
They had that clever ad that they put out. And instead the entire conversation
00:31:55.740
was just sort of hijacked and everyone's talking about whether Pierre might lose his,
00:32:01.340
you know, minority government that, that, uh, sorry, that Carney might lose minority,
00:32:05.500
gain a majority. And I think that that would be really hurt harmful for Pierre Polyev. He's
00:32:11.100
facing a leadership review within his own party in January. Uh, what I want to ask you, why do you
00:32:16.700
think that Polyev is at risk? I know that there are some campaigns to get him removed. I think this
00:32:21.660
can't, couldn't have been a good news cycle for him based on the fact that he could be
00:32:25.500
shedding his own party. Um, how, how strong do you think his position as leader is right now?
00:32:30.780
Uh, if I was ballparking his percentage of the vote in a leadership review in favor of him,
00:32:37.100
I would put him between 75% to 95%. It could be any of those numbers. I know that actually varies
00:32:44.940
quite a bit. Uh, there are kind of like two factions of no poly of people. The people, the one
00:32:51.180
is Tim Houston and Doug Ford allies, people who just do not like his brand of politics. You know,
00:32:57.740
he's too populist. He should be doing this moderate red Tory way where you just promise very mild, uh,
00:33:05.180
change. And then for some reason that's going to make Canadians love you. This is actually why I did
00:33:09.580
like Aaron O'Toole's era of the conservative party. Cause it proved all those myths completely wrong.
00:33:14.220
Being just a listless moderate, in fact, makes people run away from you because they don't know
00:33:19.260
what to make of you because you don't represent much of anything. So that's one faction. And then
00:33:23.500
the second faction would be people who want internal governance reform, but it actually does look like
00:33:30.220
that may be the group of people who are more willing to cast another ballot in favor of poly of
00:33:36.140
to keep him around because people had a lot of problems with just the way the party was internally
00:33:41.100
run too many appointments in ridings before the election, too many scuffed nominations where
00:33:47.100
somebody was kicked out or somebody was basically assisted into the nomination. But the thing is
00:33:53.740
that at the same time, there was a lot more going on with national council and with all he has office,
00:33:59.500
him taking more direct control over that stuff and trying to shake the nonsense out. That was kind
00:34:04.620
of more of like a advisor, lower level kind of staffer scheme where, you know, that staffer,
00:34:10.300
that advisor may try and get their friend in. And if he cracks down on that, I think that you would
00:34:14.540
actually have a lot more people be willing to say yes to him. But I don't see a scenario where
00:34:19.900
it's going to be like 70% or like a Bonnie Crombie 58% outcome.
00:34:26.140
Well, it's interesting just that you mentioned that because I know that you were involved in your
00:34:29.740
own battle and there was a lot of complaints that the party was tightly run, that they didn't let
00:34:34.380
the true candidate selection democracy happen. And yet, to me, that makes it even more surprising.
00:34:39.820
Because they control the nomination process so heavily, how do you have MPs crossing the floor?
00:34:44.700
I mean, presumably, you know, they made these people swear allegiance and they were recruiting
00:34:50.620
people who would stay loyal to conservatism and to Polyev as leader. It didn't seem they'd do that. I
00:34:56.620
would just add one more group of people. And that is members of the base that were just disappointed
00:35:01.100
by Polyev's election performance, people who thought that he was caught flat footed when it
00:35:05.900
came to Trump, that he was just trying to echo the liberals too much, you know, for all of this,
00:35:11.100
I'm a fighter, I'm going to, you know, come out and defend conservative values. I see a lot of people,
00:35:16.940
a lot of people I talked to a lot of people online, just, you know, he just didn't bring it. And he and
00:35:21.340
he did kind of, like, go soft on some of his core conservative positions. I don't think that,
00:35:28.140
I don't think it's enough to oust his leader, I think deserves another shot. And I think that
00:35:32.060
a lot of these other people think that but I do hear voices sort of from the right saying,
00:35:36.540
you know, we didn't we didn't really get the red meat, we didn't really get a strong conservative
00:35:40.540
performance last election. And, you know, hoping that maybe there's someone better out there.
00:35:44.620
I don't know if there is, but that that's, that's also what I'm hearing.
00:35:47.980
Well, and the problem and the good thing, though, is because I would be one of those people saying,
00:35:53.340
too soft on immigration, you needed a more fiscally hawkish platform, when I think I've
00:35:59.100
even repeated this on your show before, when the liberals are saying, I'll give you a one percent
00:36:02.780
tax cut under $50,000. And you're like two and a quarter. It's like, who cares? That doesn't mean
00:36:08.140
anything. Reduce tax across the board by 20% or don't bother with it, because nobody even detects
00:36:13.900
that on their radar that you're doing that. And then on some other issues, yes, like Trump,
00:36:18.060
trying to a little bit too much like the liberals. But this is where I give him credit,
00:36:23.180
post election, unlike many other leaders who lose, he didn't just tighten the inner circle around him
00:36:28.940
and demand that everyone keeps supporting him. And I'm I know what I'm doing. He actually got much
00:36:33.340
better on the issues as ardent his position on fiscal issues on immigration on culture issues.
00:36:40.220
So I think that's a good sign. That's where he's actually, you know, able to listen to criticism,
00:36:46.220
take it in and then improve from it, which, you know, again, to contrast with Aaron O'Toole is 10,000
00:36:53.740
Well, that's exactly right. Okay, I want to go back to the budget just quickly, because you're
00:36:57.100
an Alberta guy. And there was a bit of a talk about possibly eliminating the oil and gas emissions cap.
00:37:05.340
This is a line straight from the budget. Canada's committed to bringing down emissions associated
00:37:09.180
with the production of oil and gas, effective carbon markets, hence oil and gas methane regulations,
00:37:13.580
and the deployment at scale of technologies such as carbon capture and storage would create the
00:37:17.420
circumstances whereby an oil and gas emissions cap, this is the important part, would no longer be
00:37:22.700
required, as it would have marginal value. So there is some talk of possibly Carney, you know,
00:37:30.460
scrapping the emissions cap, also some talk about, you know, we want this pipeline, we want
00:37:34.780
more oil getting to market, how are we going to get a pipeline through British Columbia, just moments
00:37:40.460
ago, speaking at a presser in Vancouver, BC Premier David Eby said that there will be no pipeline project.
00:37:47.580
And that basically, you know, Danielle Smith trying to get rid of the oil tanker ban off the West Coast,
00:37:55.420
and not going to happen. So I mean, fighting words, I know Danielle Smith has set a deadline for her
00:38:00.060
demands to mark Carney by Grey Cup, which is November 16. So there's a lot a lot at play here.
00:38:06.860
What do you think of all this? Well, on the pipeline issue, and the cap issue, I guess the cap
00:38:13.180
could be a good thing or bad thing. Again, two different scenarios here. The one is that is the
00:38:18.780
spending requirements on oil and gas companies to basically bypass the cap going to be so stringent,
00:38:25.340
it basically is a completely neutral decision that if you require if the cap is losing companies
00:38:31.100
billions of dollars, but you say, Okay, we'll get rid of the cap, but you have to spend billions of
00:38:35.180
dollars. It really depends on what the companies have to do in order to be able to eliminate the cap.
00:38:40.700
If it's that they can make some small scale investments in carbon capture,
00:38:44.140
and whatever, and then they can get rid of the cap and they can make billions more,
00:38:48.460
then that's a good thing. But the second problem, the second part of this issue is that without
00:38:53.740
pipelines, without the ability to export oil and gas products, well, you can ramp up your actual
00:38:59.820
production, but then just be stockpiling and have nowhere to actually send it to because we'll be at
00:39:05.660
capacity in terms of oil and gas products that we're selling into our own country, as well as into the
00:39:11.740
United States. And the thing that the complete farce of that press conference that E.B. did today
00:39:17.260
and what he did the previous day, he was seen with Grand Chief Stuart, uh, Philip, who quite literally
00:39:25.660
is the husband of an NDP MLA. And E.B. basically used that guy to launder the anti-pipeline position
00:39:34.140
where he came out and said, Well, you know, the problem is for indigenous people, a pipeline is a
00:39:38.620
non-starter. It's like, Oh, wow. Who could have guessed that this guy married to one of David E.B.'s
00:39:43.980
colleagues thought that. And then that's the reason that's what E.B. is saying, wrapped in his
00:39:49.340
blanket saying, Oh, it's a non-starter. We can't do it. We need to protect our forests. Indigenous
00:39:54.620
people told me, i.e. my colleague's husband told me. Right. Well, let's, let's play the clip. So folks
00:40:00.620
know what we're talking about here is the scene. And I mean, even just the backdrop that, you know,
00:40:04.780
the people, the way that E.B.'s dress, wearing some kind of an indigenous garb here, it's, it's all,
00:40:09.660
it's all sort of cosplaying. But anyway, let's play this clip. I'll point out, uh, uh, what is obvious
00:40:15.100
to me and, uh, and has yet to fully sink in, uh, for some, uh, individuals, which is that there is no
00:40:22.060
pipeline project across the north. There is no route. Uh, there is no proponent. Uh, there is no financing.
00:40:29.260
Uh, simply because, uh, the, uh, premier of Alberta would like to get rid of the oil tanker ban
00:40:35.820
on the north coast does not mean that anybody wants to build this pipeline. Uh, it would cost 40
00:40:41.420
to 50 billion dollars. Uh, it would, uh, require, um, uh, navigating a consensus at the provincial
00:40:50.300
and coastal first nations level that, uh, has a different approach to growing our economy by
00:40:55.180
developing our coast. And so, uh, I don't, I'll be blunt. Uh, I don't see any prospect
00:41:02.620
of a pipeline unless it is fully taxpayer funded and the federal government forces it through over
00:41:08.060
provincial and indigenous objections. So really making it very clear there that he
00:41:14.060
thinks that the only way it'll happen is if Carney like forces him by law to do it. I mean, there's
00:41:19.500
just so much garbage in that statement saying that we're going to grow our economy other ways.
00:41:23.100
I mean, you look at what's happening on British Columbia, the economy is not growing out there.
00:41:26.860
Okay. Like you're, you're trying to destroy your own industry. Like the thing that made Canada
00:41:32.300
developed wealthy is our natural resources and you want to keep them in the ground. It's, it's,
00:41:37.100
it's frustrating, uh, when that is the counterparty that you have to deal with. What do you think,
00:41:40.780
Wyatt? Well, it's like the logging sector, the harvesting of logs in British Columbia,
00:41:45.900
since the NDP took office has fallen by 43%. And we're not really in a scenario where like,
00:41:52.700
Oh, there's no more trees. People can't find trees in British Columbia anymore. And so it's falling
00:41:57.020
because of lack of supply. It's not exactly like the Buffalo hunt coming to an end because you just
00:42:01.580
can't find any. It's because they reduce the allowable cut. And so companies can only cut so
00:42:07.500
much and then sawmills close down. It was so bad. An MLA I work with in British Columbia asked the forest
00:42:14.700
minister, why they won't increase the allowable cut. And he says, well, that's the chief Forester's
00:42:18.940
decision. He appoints the chief Forester, but, but also I think even EB misspoke on that, uh,
00:42:25.020
particular, uh, in that press conference. Cause he said, the only way this is going to happen if it's
00:42:29.500
a fully taxpayer funded, I think he meant not taxpayer funded because, or else he's shifting the
00:42:34.300
goalposts. Cause previously he said he wanted it to be 100% private funded, knowing that that will
00:42:39.980
never happen with the tanker ban in place with C 69, the anti, uh, pipeline bill in place.
00:42:46.700
Obviously you're not going to get investment for something that is borderline impossible,
00:42:51.500
or it would cost multiple times more to do than building a pipeline in Texas or somewhere else
00:42:57.420
in the world. It's like wondering. That is what he was saying. Basically that we've made the business
00:43:03.100
case so impossible with all of our ridiculous regulations and bands that the only person stupid
00:43:08.300
enough to pay for a pipeline in Canada now would have to be the ones that are forced,
00:43:13.100
uh, compelled to do it because their government is forcing them. I think that was the point that
00:43:16.700
he was making. It's like the Eric Andre meme. If he just goes in and shoots the pipeline in the head
00:43:21.500
and then he's like, who killed the pipelines? Oh my goodness. Right. Well, and, and they just make
00:43:27.980
it ridiculous saying there has to be a consensus, right? So like basically anybody who wants a veto gets
00:43:32.540
it and, uh, not gonna happen. So I, again, I think Danielle Smith has her work cut out for
00:43:37.660
her trying to negotiate with this person. Um, hopefully Mark Carney will come back with her
00:43:41.820
deadline and we can move forward as a real country that has, you know, a plan to develop our economy
00:43:47.420
and create jobs for the people. Well, why I'd always appreciate your time and insight. Thanks so much
00:43:52.620
for joining us today. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. All right. That's Wyatt Claypool of the National
00:43:56.780
Telegraph folks. That's all the time we have for today. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'm Candace
00:44:00.060
Welcome. This is the Candace Welcome Show. Thank you. And God bless.