Wyatt Claypool talks about the Air Canada strike, the strike, and all the social media reaction to the strike and the government's response to it. He also talks about why the strike is a good thing for Air Canada and why the government is being a hypocrite.
00:00:02.780So apparently this is the week that Mark Carney's Liberal government wants to blow itself up.
00:00:09.340There is actually a real chance that this is going to cause a popularity slump for Carney and the Liberals that will not go away.
00:00:17.340Because remember, in the 2025 federal election, the Liberal coalition was made up of a lot of people who defected from the NDP.
00:00:26.560The NDP went from 18% in the 2021 election to around 6.6% in 2025.
00:00:35.540Naturally, the Liberals gained around two-thirds of that with the Conservatives gaining one-third of it.
00:00:40.840The Conservatives' one-third that they've taken is pretty secure.
00:00:44.780The Conservatives have become a more blue-collar kind of a party.
00:00:48.940Pierre Polyev tends to represent those blue-collar workers quite well compared to previous Conservative leaders like Aaron O'Toole and Andrew Scheer.
00:00:57.280But for the Liberals, now that they have decided to go after the unions on the Air Canada issue,
00:01:05.260they are going to be pushing a lot of people back towards the NDP.
00:01:10.000So I'm going to get into all the details here and go over all the social media reaction because the social media reaction does matter.
00:01:16.500There are so many people I know voted Liberal who are saying they are ripping up their membership and going back to the NDP.
00:01:23.580But before we get into it, guys, I just want to remind you, if you like the show, make sure to leave a like on this video,
00:01:29.500subscribe to the channel if you are not yet a subscriber,
00:01:32.480and leave a comment on what you think about the situation.
00:01:35.600It helps us on the algorithm, and I do like to go through and read what people are saying.
00:01:40.000Anyways, our story here will start with our Transportation Minister, Patti Hagew, who used to be our Health Minister.
00:01:48.560She was equally unqualified for that, but that's never gotten in her way in politics, so she is now in this position.
00:04:02.020They are subject to some of the highest taxes in Canada, because they pay corporate taxes, airport fees, you have to charge your customers security costs, baggage handling fees, you have to pay rent for your terminal slots.
00:04:16.940Air Canada only has a profit margin of 5.7%.
00:04:21.080Now, that doesn't mean that flight attendants were not also being screwed over.
00:04:25.880They were, but it's not because of the airlines exactly.
00:04:29.540It's, in fact, because of bad government policy, as well as their own unions actually negotiating the contract that they already had.
00:04:37.280So, a lot of people are being hypocritical in this situation, but the liberals are coming out of it the worst,
00:04:42.880because they have taken the position that flight attendants must go back to work, and basically the Air Canada must negotiate and come up with some deal.
00:04:53.060Like, they've ticked off everyone while not even having a good point to make.
00:04:57.580Their own policy will not be better in the long run.
00:05:04.580So, now, I just want to go through some of the other things floating around, things that have happened since all this,
00:05:11.840as well as reaction from different political individuals and whatnot.
00:05:16.380So, let's just start off with what CUPE National said.
00:05:20.300So, this is the National Canadian Union of Public Employees.
00:05:24.500It is technically, you know, CUPE represents these flight attendants, even though it's usually public employees for this union.
00:05:31.660But, CUPE National yesterday said the liberal government has invoked Section 107 of the Canada Labor Code to end a strike by Air Canada flight attendants fighting to end unpaid work and poverty wages.
00:05:44.360And, as it goes on, it says stuff like, in the quotes here,
00:05:47.600the liberals have talked out of both sides of the mouth.
00:05:50.380They have said the best place for this is at the bargaining table.
00:05:55.700They refuse to correct this historic injustice through legislation,
00:05:58.480said Wesley Lesowski, president of Air Canada, component of CUPE.
00:14:28.160And that's why we need a policy change to actually fix the real fundamental problems here.
00:14:33.140But somebody was correct in pointing out, and although a lot of people have said this,
00:14:38.220that the unions are absolutely winning the PR war right now.
00:14:41.820And the liberals, seeing Air Canada losing, decide to throw their lot in with Air Canada.
00:14:48.860And again, I'm not unsympathetic to Air Canada.
00:14:51.5805.7% profit margins, massive amounts of taxes you pay.
00:14:55.440In an industry that's pretty difficult to operate in, like 5.7% profit margin is like what credit card companies are getting on transactions.
00:15:03.620I know that's more, but considering how easy it is to be a credit card company and how difficult it is to be an airline, it's really not worth it in a lot of ways.
00:15:18.020Here's Claudia Schender, who is the leader of the Nova Scotia NDP, who says,
00:15:30.080Flight attendants should be paid for their entire shift, but today the Liberal government imposed back-to-work legislation on a mostly female workforce who are literally forced to work for free for a part of every single shift.
00:15:42.660And this is a great, actually, I'm going to skip up to something else here.
00:15:48.020I love posts like this because this guy has so much hate.
00:15:51.680He has a big Liberal account, and all the more left-leaning Liberals ended up attacking him on their way out to go join the NDP again.
00:16:00.760Because obviously what this guy is saying is just so, I don't know, just mindless.
00:20:01.940I'm going to keep saying I like this because it's great to see all these people fighting who usually would be united.
00:20:08.700Like, these people were all united during the federal election to keep the conservatives out.
00:20:12.820And now they're protesting in the streets against the liberals who they thought were going to, you know, save them from those dastardly conservatives who have, in fact, backed the flight attendants.
00:20:22.400I think they, again, need to call for tax reform measures, too, for the airlines.
00:20:27.060But the conservatives have been at least smart enough not to fully step in it on this issue.
00:20:32.680They have avoided having the unions want to attack them while not being massive union shills like the NDP are.
00:20:38.380And also not, like, antagonizing Air Canada needlessly.
00:20:43.300They're mostly going after the federal government for being incompetent on this one.
00:20:46.760Air Canada is shutting down operations.
00:21:27.960People can say, well, the CEO makes $12 million.
00:21:30.580Okay, we'll redistribute his wage to every single Air Canada flight attendant, and they will all make $10 more in the year.
00:21:38.720It's always kind of a silly contention that, like, oh, well, the guy at the top making a lot of money who's helping keep the company profitable so he don't go under,
00:21:49.040But now I want to just quickly go over the numbers of why this is so bad for Mark Carney and his government.
00:21:55.360Let's just go with the national numbers.
00:21:57.560So in 2025's federal election, the Liberals scored 43% of the vote.
00:22:05.140And I just want to put the Conservatives here at a number I think is reasonable.
00:22:08.600I think it's reasonable to say the Conservatives right now are probably at 38% when I average between a lot of the other polls I've been seeing out there.
00:22:18.080They're behind the Liberals, but not a massive amount.
00:22:23.000Abacus only put them three points behind.
00:22:25.200I think that's a little bit too good for the Conservatives right now.
00:22:28.900You know, Liberals just got re-elected.
00:22:30.720Let's also bring my microphone around so you guys can hear me better.
00:23:04.860But remember, in 2021, they had 18% of the vote.
00:23:10.940In the 2025 election, they had of the 12% that defected, it was like about, you know, 4.5% or 5% had gone to the Conservatives, and the rest went to the Liberals.
00:23:22.660And so with that, if we assume that, like, the Liberals have in their 43%, somewhere between, you know, 7.5% to 8% NDP support, they could end up having probably about, I would guess, 3% or 4% of people in the next six months leave back to the NDP.
00:23:45.240And we could see the NDP actually resurgent in the low 10s, around, let's just say, 10% for this case.
00:23:53.900And we'd see the Liberals falling down to maybe 39%, because I think this is also going to rattle even some of the longer-time Liberal supporters who are not big fans, like, you know, who, they've never voted NDP before, but this whole workers issue is going to really put them off of Carney, and now they're going to conclude.
00:24:16.740It's good to be a Conservative where you don't really have to deal with people's emotions as much when you're trying to court voters, but this is the sort of environment that the Liberals have embroiled themselves in, and now they're going to have to live with it.
00:24:28.060And I don't doubt that in time, this is also going to be benefiting the Conservatives, because people who don't like what the Liberals did because of this, especially if they were longer-time Liberal voters and not just NDP who voted Liberal, you're going to have some of those Liberals being disgusted by their own party, and then jump down to the Conservatives.
00:24:49.020I do not doubt. It's kind of like the NDP voters, former NDP will go back NDP, but those kind of moderate voters between Liberal and Conservative who voted Liberal will now go over to the Conservatives.
00:25:01.280But anyways, that should be it for this video, guys. No doubt we are going to see more and more updates on this issue.
00:25:09.680Again, I love it. This is actually going to really hamper Mark Carney's ability to ever get re-elected.
00:25:16.200Not because this is like a nail-in-a-coffin moment, but it really is taking the thunder out of his government really early on.
00:25:24.120They were supposed to, you know, they haven't gotten anything done yet. Bill C-5 is not probably going to get any major projects done.
00:25:30.680Their tax cut is pretty minimal. It doesn't really, it's probably not going to affect many people's lives that much.
00:25:36.180What else? You know, the trade war was a complete fiasco. They've messed up on foreign policy already, identifying, like, you know, recognizing a Palestinian terror state.
00:25:48.760It's not looking very good. And we don't even have a budget yet. We don't have a budget. And we have a $92 billion deficit.
00:25:55.920We have a union strike affecting air travel right now, and the Liberals are taking the stupidest position on it.
00:26:02.020But it's a bad time to be Mark Carney. And it's, you know, August. He just got elected back in April, and it's August, and he's already having his honeymoon end.
00:26:12.280Like, Trudeau remained popular when he first got elected for, like, over a year. You know, same thing with Stephen Harper.
00:26:18.620And now we have Carney not even living for more than three months before people realize, hey, I hate this guy. Wow.
00:26:25.760Anyways, so that's it for me for today, guys. See you later.