The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - December 14, 2025


Carney undermining democracy because he fears a new election!


Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

176.40982

Word count

2,732

Sentence count

134

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Wyatt Claypool breaks down the latest polling numbers and discusses why Prime Minister Mark Carney does not want to face a new election. He also discusses the current makeup of the House of Commons and why he does not need another election.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Ahoy, everyone. Wyatt Claypool here, back again to break down some Canadian polling numbers.
00:00:06.540 And today we will also be discussing the current makeup of the House of Commons
00:00:11.040 and why Prime Minister Mark Carney does not want to face a new election
00:00:16.000 and would rather do what he is currently doing and trying to entice Conservative MPs
00:00:22.180 to cross the floor and join his Liberal government.
00:00:25.020 You can already see in the chart right here, the numbers aren't fantastic for Mark Carney.
00:00:30.200 They're not terrible, but him going into another election is a coin flip at best.
00:00:36.160 And if anything, Paulia probably has the advantage because Trump has left the public's mind as a top issue
00:00:42.120 and Carney hasn't been able to deliver on a lot of the promises he made during the last election.
00:00:48.340 Yes, we are less than a year into this government,
00:00:51.060 but still, a lot of the promises he made were things that he should have been able to achieve immediately
00:00:56.840 or that should have shown up in the budget and absolutely did not.
00:01:01.980 But before I get into it all, I just want to plug the fact that I have started a membership program for the channel.
00:01:09.060 There are no real special benefits yet to joining the program.
00:01:12.500 It just helps sustain the channel, making it so that the channel doesn't live or die
00:01:16.560 depending on who the algorithm shows the videos to, because that's a big problem on YouTube.
00:01:21.420 You'll see like super popular channels just hit the floor because the algorithm just stops recommending them ever
00:01:27.480 and their videos just like absolutely make no money at all.
00:01:31.140 And this just basically helps make all the months far more smooth and I don't need to be chasing viral topics.
00:01:36.580 I can just talk about things that are interesting.
00:01:39.240 So consider joining the program.
00:01:41.080 I think the lower tier is like $4 and I think the higher tier is $10.
00:01:44.320 For some reason, it displays the numbers differently to me than it does to the public
00:01:48.420 based on some formula of like a YouTube cut or whatever.
00:01:52.020 I don't understand it.
00:01:52.820 But if you want to join, you can do that.
00:01:55.240 The second tier is in fact called the Ahoy Club because that's what my mind wanted to make it for some reason.
00:02:00.900 Anyways, so let's get into the numbers here.
00:02:04.440 This is the latest Abacus data poll.
00:02:07.580 It currently has the Conservative Party of Canada and Pierre Polyev at 41%.
00:02:13.240 Mark Carney's Liberals tied at 41%.
00:02:16.380 The NDP at 7%.
00:02:18.180 Bloc Québécois at 7%.
00:02:20.160 And the Green Party of Canada at 2%.
00:02:22.320 I didn't bother adding the PPC because they are at 1%.
00:02:25.900 And I think that's even generous for them these days.
00:02:29.100 The PPC is not going to exist in the next election.
00:02:31.540 They only got 0.7% of the vote in 2025.
00:02:34.560 If a 2026 election triggers, do you think anyone's going to be significantly voting for the PPC?
00:02:41.360 Yeah, they'll have candidates.
00:02:43.120 I think that 0.7% would be a bit of a tall order for them at this point.
00:02:47.080 I think that they may not even actually exist as a party come that time.
00:02:50.640 So that is why they don't exist here.
00:02:53.040 But since the last poll, the Conservatives have actually gone up by one point.
00:02:57.060 The NDP had fallen and everyone else has been in a stagnant position.
00:03:00.780 But you have to remember, the Liberals only barely won the last election by 8,000 votes.
00:03:07.340 Yes, they won a significantly higher amount of seats than the Conservative Party did.
00:03:14.180 But considering the fact that the Conservatives would have had a minority government if 8,000 votes in the closest riding had flipped,
00:03:22.300 that's pretty dang close.
00:03:25.100 And the Conservatives, in fact, have a more efficient vote right now than the Liberals do.
00:03:31.340 The Conservatives got really close despite losing by like 2.3% to the Liberals or like 2.1%.
00:03:38.480 If it was a tie ballgame, 41-41, the Conservatives wouldn't have a majority,
00:03:44.180 but they'd probably have around 150 to 160 seats, and the Liberals would have around 130 to 140.
00:03:52.180 Carney does not want a new election.
00:03:54.000 The man wants a majority.
00:03:56.380 The thing about Carney compared to Trudeau is Trudeau, I didn't find, could get like restless.
00:04:02.740 Carney doesn't like working with other people.
00:04:04.800 He doesn't like there being question marks around decisions he's making.
00:04:08.680 He is used to just ordering something to be done, and it gets done.
00:04:12.100 And so he is extremely uncomfortable in this minority government situation.
00:04:17.700 And at the moment, after the floor crossing of Chris Dontremont and Michael Ma,
00:04:22.700 two traitor Conservatives who apparently didn't actually believe in the things they were running on,
00:04:28.280 the Liberal Party in their government currently has 171 seats.
00:04:36.380 And how many seats do you need in order to have a majority government?
00:04:40.600 Well, you guys probably know, it's 172.
00:04:47.060 He literally only needs one more Conservative, of which I think there is 139, 138 right now.
00:04:54.940 Only one more has to leave in order for Carney to at least have a bare majority.
00:05:01.140 Now, technically, he wouldn't have a majority still, but it can still work,
00:05:06.080 because even if he has 172 Liberals, you end up taking one off who ends up becoming the Speaker.
00:05:14.220 And then, although he can still technically vote with whatever the government does,
00:05:19.640 it's still less comfortable.
00:05:21.300 It slows down the process of being able to actually pass stuff.
00:05:24.880 And it means absolutely nobody can be away from Parliament at any time if you want to pass things.
00:05:30.440 There's always been this pairing tradition in Parliament that if a Conservative or an NDP is away from Parliament,
00:05:38.180 then a Liberal will also be away and agree not to vote on things.
00:05:41.980 If this actually happens where there's 172 Liberals because another Conservative crosses,
00:05:47.460 I think what Pollyov honestly should be doing is saying we are no longer pairing MPs.
00:05:54.340 Your MPs are either always here or we're not sending someone on vacation just because you're guys on vacation.
00:06:01.660 Our people are always going to be here and you guys don't get to leave.
00:06:05.460 Because I think that would be a good way of trying to raise the temperature.
00:06:08.980 Because we're in a situation where it's pure brinksmanship.
00:06:12.700 But, and this is why I want to bring this up,
00:06:14.740 the problem is, and this is why an election matters,
00:06:18.280 although we're thinking, okay, it's any day now that another Conservative
00:06:22.620 who probably should have never been a Conservative candidate could cross the floor
00:06:26.760 and it's all over and the next election is not until 2029.
00:06:31.080 The problem, though, is there is approximately five to six Liberal MPs planning on resigning soon.
00:06:40.720 Now, are those people likely to have a Conservative take their place
00:06:45.560 if they resign from office and there's a by-election?
00:06:48.960 Most of them, no.
00:06:50.780 At the same time, there are some of the ridings out there that are actually pretty close,
00:06:56.320 even if it would be something where the Bloc Québécois or the NDP would win.
00:07:01.140 Most of them are safe ridings, but if one of them flips back Conservative,
00:07:04.420 we are in a very different ballgame, especially if it was considered a safer Liberal seat and it flips blue,
00:07:10.680 you're probably less likely to then leave the Conservative Party and join the Liberals
00:07:14.360 knowing that the atmosphere of the country is moving more towards the Conservatives
00:07:19.440 and by joining the other team, you're actually just shredding your chances at re-election.
00:07:24.440 We even went over this when it came to Acadianapolis with the MP Chris Dantremont.
00:07:30.100 I don't actually suspect that that guy's going to be able to win re-election as a Liberal.
00:07:34.160 He was complaining, oh, I only won by 1% this last election.
00:07:37.820 That's too close for comfort.
00:07:40.520 So apparently, the logical step was for him to join the party that lost that election
00:07:45.960 and now he's ticked everybody off because even if you voted Liberal,
00:07:49.260 I think it is kind of annoying as a non-partisan.
00:07:52.640 Like, you know, you vote Liberal, but you're not really a hyper-partisan Liberal.
00:07:56.160 That seems like a fairly scummy thing to do.
00:07:59.160 And maybe he's not even exactly the guy they would want to vote Liberal for.
00:08:02.480 They want somebody more progressive and Chris Dantremont isn't progressive enough.
00:08:06.300 But in a second here, I want to show you a couple of the ridings that may be opening up
00:08:10.340 because the MPs that they think may end up actually leaving are Nate Erskine-Smith,
00:08:16.740 Jonathan Wilkinson, Chrystia Freeland, Stephen Gilbeau,
00:08:20.320 and then we also have Melanie Jolie, Mark Miller, and a couple others that are kind of maybe kind of chances.
00:08:26.980 I kind of consider a bunch of those number six because so many of these are guaranteed to leave.
00:08:32.420 Other ones, a little bit of a 50-50.
00:08:34.980 And I think with people like Jolie and Mark Miller and some of those other names that have been floating around,
00:08:40.080 that's more of like a 10, 15, 20% chance.
00:08:43.860 People know that they're disgruntled and they don't like this government that they're in,
00:08:47.420 but that doesn't exactly mean that they're going to leave overnight to go pursue something else.
00:08:53.040 Anyways, I'm going to clear the board and come back with some of that information
00:08:57.180 regarding those ridings potentially up for a by-election.
00:09:00.240 And we're back.
00:09:03.580 And now I want to emphasize when I show you a couple of these ridings
00:09:07.200 that these are obviously pretty safe liberal ridings,
00:09:11.540 but if you know anything about by-elections,
00:09:14.440 by-election results can be wildly different from general election results,
00:09:18.920 but I'm just highlighting two ridings that have not always been consistently liberal.
00:09:22.920 The first is less of a chance of it actually being won by the Conservatives,
00:09:30.180 but Nate Erskine-Smith's riding of Beech's East York has been won previously by an NDP
00:09:36.980 in the election where the Liberals collapsed in 2011 and Jack Layton was on the rise.
00:09:42.900 Now that one is far less interesting,
00:09:44.900 although I think if the Conservatives really threw everything at the wall in that riding,
00:09:48.800 they could actually potentially win it if they just get their base out,
00:09:53.680 because in by-elections, turnout can be as low as like 10%, 20%.
00:09:58.360 So if you make sure that your base shows up like it's a general election,
00:10:03.040 a federal general election, you could actually still pull off a win anyways.
00:10:07.820 And now here is the one that's more interesting.
00:10:10.740 It's Jonathan Wilkinson's riding of North Vancouver Capilano.
00:10:14.960 Now, the boundaries have changed a little bit in this last election,
00:10:19.540 but as you can see, the person who held the riding before Jonathan Wilkinson
00:10:23.760 was conservative Andrew Saxton, and the boundaries really haven't moved that much.
00:10:29.120 That's why they've just kind of slightly relabeled what the ridings were before and what it is now.
00:10:35.160 These are pretty much all the same boundaries.
00:10:37.720 Before Andrew Saxton, it was Don Bell, and before Don Bell,
00:10:40.460 it was Ted White for Reform, Alliance, and the Conservatives.
00:10:44.500 So that is, in fact, a fairly old-school conservative riding that has just gone liberal more recently.
00:10:52.620 Now, did he win by a pretty decisive margin in this last election?
00:10:56.840 Sure, he won like 52% of the vote or whatever.
00:11:00.380 That doesn't really matter, though, because the Conservatives probably eyed up that riding,
00:11:05.100 said Jonathan Wilkinson is an incumbent, he's going to have a big war chest,
00:11:09.620 and we already have enough ridings that we're fighting over anyways,
00:11:12.900 just throw some random candidate in there, be done with it,
00:11:16.260 give him, like, you know, $10,000, like $45,000, $50,000,
00:11:20.320 just some small amount of money compared to other candidates,
00:11:23.540 and let him lose gracefully or something like that.
00:11:26.940 In a by-election scenario, when the incumbent is gone,
00:11:30.260 especially when your own base just put you into office
00:11:33.340 and they don't exactly want to have to show up for your replacement,
00:11:36.760 then you actually have the ability to try and tap into those old conservative alliance
00:11:42.420 and reform parts of the riding,
00:11:44.540 seeing if the vote's actually there,
00:11:46.480 and then driving them out in a by-election.
00:11:49.160 Because everyone, like, again,
00:11:50.900 many of these people are definitely leaving,
00:11:53.740 not just cabinet, but caucus.
00:11:55.840 Stephen Gilbeau is not going to sit as a backbencher until 2029.
00:11:58.780 You're not going to have Chrystia Freeland sitting around, 1.00
00:12:01.420 especially since she has to go and take her job in Oxford, England in the summer,
00:12:06.720 and I don't think she's going to resign and then fly out there to start working right away. 1.00
00:12:11.140 She'll probably want some time with her family before she actually has to start her new gig. 0.99
00:12:15.600 Nate Erskine-Smith in Beaches, East York,
00:12:18.520 has to take over or has to run for the Ontario Liberal leadership,
00:12:22.940 so that's something that he can't really let drag on too long.
00:12:25.640 And Jonathan Wilkinson wants to be Canada's High Commissioner to the UK,
00:12:31.360 and he wants to take over for,
00:12:33.480 I forget the name of the guy who's currently at,
00:12:36.100 but the guy who currently has that job is like 83, 84,
00:12:39.780 so naturally he can't wait another three or four years
00:12:42.400 and just make sure that that person hangs on for it forever.
00:12:46.140 Jonathan Wilkinson is going to have to take that job fairly soon.
00:12:50.320 So even if, in a scenario where Mark Carney gets another conservative to cross the floor,
00:12:55.040 he could do it, he might not do it.
00:12:57.100 I consider it a 50-50.
00:12:58.760 There are ways for the Conservatives to try and beat the Liberals in a by-election.
00:13:03.700 And some of these other by-elections where Conservatives have no chance,
00:13:06.880 I would say, back the Bloc. 0.94
00:13:09.220 If it's in a Montreal riding,
00:13:11.300 yes, just give all your resources over to the Bloc Quebecois.
00:13:14.180 Tell your volunteers to go help them out,
00:13:17.160 because in Montreal, the Conservative Party is literally a fourth-place party.
00:13:22.340 It goes Liberal, Bloc, NDP, and Conservatives at usually below 10% of the vote.
00:13:27.860 It's just a weird part of the world.
00:13:30.100 And even Bill Blair is somebody who may leave,
00:13:33.040 and Scarborough is like, you know, Scarborough Southwest, his riding.
00:13:38.000 Yeah, is that one good for the Conservatives?
00:13:41.040 No, but again, it's one of those ones where if you just throw enough stuff at the wall
00:13:45.320 in a by-election and you really rip the doors off the thing,
00:13:48.320 you could end up winning.
00:13:50.080 So we are in what I would consider to be a very kind of like dreary time in Canadian politics.
00:13:56.600 The fact that we're just sitting here knowing that Conservatives may just leave
00:14:00.780 and join the Liberal Party for no reason in particular,
00:14:04.440 other than maybe just personal achievement,
00:14:06.660 that they want the bigger title, that they want, you know, to be the champion or something like that.
00:14:12.020 They want the big ministry role.
00:14:13.560 They want all the fanfare of having been the guy to cross the floor
00:14:16.860 and give the majority over to the Liberals.
00:14:18.800 Yeah, it's all depressing.
00:14:20.100 At the same time, we have to focus on the silver lining
00:14:23.240 of what we can actually do to still fight back,
00:14:26.020 because I've heard some Conservatives throwing in the towel and saying,
00:14:28.920 well, it's probably going to be an election in 2029,
00:14:31.460 because it's inevitable someone's going to cross.
00:14:33.580 It's not inevitable.
00:14:34.340 And even if they do, there are ways of actually fighting back and winning anyways.
00:14:39.760 If any of these by-elections come up,
00:14:41.680 I do not want to see Polyev's team say,
00:14:44.180 oh, it's a safe Liberal riding, don't bother.
00:14:46.760 I want them to throw every single thing they can at this riding,
00:14:50.540 drive out your voters,
00:14:52.020 partner with every single organization that you can to get voters out there,
00:14:56.540 and you may actually be able to pull off an upset.
00:14:59.280 Crazier things have happened in history.
00:15:01.420 But anyways, with that all being said,
00:15:04.440 thank you guys for watching this video.
00:15:06.140 I just wanted to do that overview of the situation.
00:15:08.860 I don't think Carney wants an election,
00:15:10.340 and that's why he's trying to get a majority any way he can,
00:15:14.240 and that involves even potentially just cheating democracy
00:15:17.140 and trying to get people who are obviously elected as Conservatives
00:15:19.900 to just change their colors for no particular reason.
00:15:23.920 Anyways, but with all that being said,
00:15:26.400 thank you guys for watching,
00:15:27.500 and I'll see you all next time.