Wyatt Claypool breaks down Canadian national polling numbers for the two major parties in the latest Main Street Research poll. He also takes a look at the two-party race between the Conservatives and Liberals, and gives his thoughts on what that means for the balance of power in Canada.
00:00:00.240Ahoy everyone, Wyatt Claypool here, back again to break down some Canadian national polling numbers.
00:00:06.520Before I get into the content of the video today, I do just quickly want to thank everyone who signed up for the channel's membership program.
00:00:14.680It makes the channel far more sustainable for me and makes me less reliant on YouTube's notoriously fickle algorithm.
00:00:21.940So if you haven't joined, I would encourage you to do it. It does make the channel far more viable for me.
00:00:27.560But now, let's get into the numbers, and you will quickly realize why Prime Minister Mark Carney wants to try and get a majority government without facing a new federal election.
00:00:38.920Because he probably wouldn't win a new federal election, and I can assure you, even if another conservative crosses the floor giving the liberals a majority,
00:00:48.300there would still likely be a new election sometime in 2026 or early 2027.
00:00:54.940The problem is, is that currently the conservatives and liberals have a pairing agreement.
00:01:01.080That means if one liberal decides that they just can't vote, they have to go on vacation, they have to go on medical leave or something like that for a couple of weeks,
00:01:10.100what will happen is on the other side, a conservative will also agree to not vote,
00:01:16.020which means that nothing's actually changing in terms of the balance of power.
00:01:20.280However, if the liberals got another conservative to sort of pathetically cross the floor and join their ranks to give them a majority,
00:01:28.460the conservatives would rip up this agreement, meaning that if a liberal cannot make it to parliament to vote,
00:01:34.460a conservative is not pairing off with them, and the conservatives will get very aggressive
00:01:39.080and fight every single thing the liberals are doing tooth and nail.
00:01:42.360Unlike provincial legislatures, in the federal parliament, an opposition, even if there is a majority liberal government,
00:01:50.520they can actually stall their agenda quite well.
00:01:53.880They can throw a lot of amendments at them, a lot of motions at them,
00:01:57.240they can constantly vote on tiny little things about the liberals' legislation,
00:02:01.000and unless the liberals have a big supermajority of like 200 seats, it's very difficult for them to shut this stuff down,
00:02:08.480especially when the conservatives are not allowing the liberals to pair off any of their MPs who cannot make it to vote.
00:02:14.360Remember, the liberals are actually quite an old party at this point,
00:02:18.260they have a lot of MPs who are actually over the age of 70,
00:02:21.560and yeah, a lot of 70-year-olds can absolutely do the job fine,
00:02:25.400but the problem is when you can't even take a break,
00:02:27.720yeah, some of these people are going to be living through a fairly torturous time in parliament if that ends up happening.
00:02:35.360But now, let's get into the numbers that just came out from Main Street Research today
00:02:39.540that should be worrying for Prime Minister Mark Carney.
00:02:43.460So, Main Street Research's new poll of around 1,000 people, I think it's like 1,300 people or so,
00:02:49.500it has Mark Carney's liberals currently at 41% of the vote.
00:02:56.180Now, I don't want to write down the conservatives yet,
00:02:59.080I want to go to the other parties just to show that we are still very much in the same two-party race
00:03:05.600that we were back in the last federal election.
00:03:09.040The NDP, who still doesn't have an official leader right now, is only at 6% in the vote.