The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - January 10, 2026


Liberal admits Carney isn't getting his majority! (Spring Election Time)


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

198.71887

Word count

2,761

Sentence count

149

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Chrystia Freeland resigns her seat in the House of Commons, leaving a gaping hole in Mark Carney's government. What does that mean for the chances of another Liberal floor crosser? And what does it mean for a possible spring 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 Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here, and happy Chrystia Freeland Resigns Day to everyone who celebrates. 1.00
00:00:07.560 Chrystia Freeland finally made one good decision in her political career, and that was to resign her seat in the House of Commons.
00:00:15.480 But now, Mark Carney and his liberal government are in a very awkward position.
00:00:21.280 I think it's right to characterize that around mid-December, it seemed like all of the momentum was on Carney's side.
00:00:28.240 He had just gotten his second Conservative Party floor-crosser to his liberal government,
00:00:33.060 and it seemed very likely that he was going to get a third person to cross, whether from the Conservatives or the NDP,
00:00:39.560 and he would have his majority government.
00:00:42.240 But then everything just kind of stopped, and the momentum started violently shifting away from Mark Carney right now,
00:00:49.480 leading to the fact we're probably going to have a spring election.
00:00:52.960 Carney started having MPs, both from the Conservatives and the NDP,
00:00:57.540 publicly come out and reject the liberals' attempts to try and get them to cross,
00:01:01.380 which really demonstrated that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel of ideas of people to try and approach.
00:01:06.900 And now, Carney's the one having people resign on him, leaving a bigger gap in his government,
00:01:12.380 making it effectively impossible to convince anyone to actually cross the floor and join the government.
00:01:17.580 We now even have liberals on television admitting that Carney's never getting his majority,
00:01:23.400 and yes, we probably are going to see that spring election come around.
00:01:27.240 So I want to play this clip from CBC's Power in Politics,
00:01:31.320 because when you can get the liberal hack Greg McEacherin to agree that Carney's not getting a majority,
00:01:37.540 he's not getting it.
00:01:38.660 The man is a chronic cheerleader.
00:01:41.660 If he's saying it, you can take that to the bank in regards to the Liberal Party.
00:01:45.660 So Greg, you know, Jol-Denis Belavance, well, he sat right in that chair last night on the show,
00:01:52.100 and he was saying that he thinks there's still potential floor crossers out there, 0.93
00:01:56.180 that Stephen McKinnon and Tim Hodgson in particular are still having conversations with people on the other side of the floor.
00:02:02.220 But in the last 24 to 48 hours, I've talked to people with connections to the Liberals and the PMO,
00:02:07.180 and I'm not so sure, and thinking more and more maybe a spring election could be.
00:02:12.900 And that's really funny, too, that even David Cochran, the guy who hosts the show,
00:02:17.260 who's supposed to be a neutral moderator, he's obviously very liberal.
00:02:21.280 The fact that he's basically also casting down the fact that the Liberals are going to get another floor crosser 1.00
00:02:26.620 means also it's not going to happen.
00:02:28.840 I'm going to get to what Greg McEacherin says in a second,
00:02:31.300 but that's funny when he has people like Steve McKinnon, the House leader,
00:02:34.260 trying to go around and say, no, no, no, we still have people.
00:02:36.480 We still have people that we're going to try and bring over.
00:02:39.040 Earlier in this panel show, David Cochran was saying that they thought their best first-round draft pick person
00:02:47.760 to cross the floor after Michael Ma was the NDP lady from Nunavut,
00:02:53.400 and she just a few days ago said that she's not going to cross.
00:02:56.440 So who else?
00:02:57.560 The fact that they approached someone like Scott Anderson means they were completely out of ideas.
00:03:03.040 There wasn't a hope anywhere that he was going to actually cross.
00:03:07.780 So when you're asking people like him, it's because there was no one better to ask.
00:03:12.020 Scott Anderson is very conservative, so it made it really weird that they were even asking him.
00:03:17.260 But if you've gotten to the point you're asking him,
00:03:19.220 maybe there's only 20 or 30 more conservatives that you haven't asked yet,
00:03:23.160 and those are complete no's, like someone like Arnold Vearson who would never leave.
00:03:27.200 But let's get back to what Greg McEacherin says here.
00:03:29.680 In the air.
00:03:30.440 What do you hear and what do you think is the state of play here?
00:03:33.740 I think that because of the way the speculation probably prevented a floor crossing or two
00:03:41.100 and put a lot of pressure, a lot of unnecessary, perhaps even disgusting tactics were used on people
00:03:47.460 to threaten them, to keep them from crossing.
00:03:50.600 So, you know, we talked about how, what a surprise Michael Ma was.
00:03:54.780 You know, the information cards kept very close to the vest there.
00:03:57.500 So, you know, we have that line about cabinet shuffles and picking cabinet.
00:04:01.900 Those who know don't talk and those who talk don't know.
00:04:04.080 I think it's being applied here.
00:04:06.900 You know, I thought.
00:04:08.320 And the two people talking in this case is people like Steve McKinnon,
00:04:12.120 who's saying, no, no, we still have prospects.
00:04:14.580 They don't have prospects.
00:04:15.820 And notice what Greg McEacherin just did there.
00:04:17.840 Again, he's admitting that Carney's not getting the majority,
00:04:20.440 that there's no floor crosses.
00:04:21.540 But then he tries to turn it into an anti-conservative attack by saying, oh, well, you know,
00:04:26.300 there's probably people who want to cross.
00:04:28.100 But now because of unnecessary and disgusting tactics, people are probably uncomfortable
00:04:33.660 and they don't want to do it anymore.
00:04:35.380 Or is it that you got the two unprincipled petty guys to cross?
00:04:39.880 And there wasn't really anyone else that fit the description.
00:04:42.400 Chris Dontremont left because he didn't get to be deputy speaker.
00:04:45.000 And who knows why Michael Ma left?
00:04:47.140 That was his first seven months, eight months in Parliament.
00:04:50.320 And really, he decided that suddenly Mark Carney is Mr. Unity and Stability.
00:04:54.600 That sounds fake.
00:04:55.920 It frankly sounds like he was bribed to cross because I have no principled reason
00:04:59.940 to actually give you for Michael Ma leaving the Conservatives.
00:05:03.420 We were going to be talking about new Liberal MP, Laurie Idlut,
00:05:06.940 when we were taping our final Christmas shows.
00:05:09.620 When Karina Roman was in your chair, one of the things we did talk about, though,
00:05:13.500 is that there is not a war room in any party that is, you know, putting people on the list
00:05:19.940 and saying go after them.
00:05:20.840 A lot of times it's personal relationships between MPs and somebody is unhappy
00:05:24.720 and they start having, you know, conversations.
00:05:27.900 I know that, you know...
00:05:29.120 And what he's trying to do here as well is he's trying to downplay the idea
00:05:33.040 that the Liberals were trying to actively pursue getting a majority by getting people to cross. 0.84
00:05:38.160 Because the survey results came back, the focus groups came back,
00:05:42.200 and it said that people were actually kind of grossed out by Mark Carney going around
00:05:46.260 trying to get people to just give a majority.
00:05:49.080 Not for any principled reasons, not because he proved himself
00:05:51.800 and people naturally wanted to cross and they were upset with Pierre Polyev.
00:05:55.080 He was just trying to basically get people to upturn, overturn the election,
00:05:58.840 and then join his party because, well, I'll give you a position or something like that.
00:06:03.500 And now people like Steve or like Greg McEachern are trying to kind of like roll it back
00:06:07.940 and not like, you know, trying to roll back the idea they were ever actively pursuing people.
00:06:12.400 Oh, it's just personal relationships.
00:06:13.780 They were just friends chatting and trying to get people to cross.
00:06:16.920 Like, no, the fact that Steve McKinnon, he's already contradicting himself.
00:06:20.920 Steve McKinnon was saying that they still have people they're pursuing.
00:06:24.140 So are they actively pursuing people or is it just personal, friendly, cocktail party relationships
00:06:29.460 where you're just chatting about whether or not you should cross or not?
00:06:32.780 It's because it's now failing that they're basically being like, well, this was never our plan.
00:06:37.820 I've talked to a Conservative MP who is not happy but could never, ever see themselves as a Liberal.
00:06:42.880 So there's degrees of that.
00:06:46.780 As for, you know, criticizing the other party and then crossing the floor,
00:06:50.440 I don't think that ever stops anybody.
00:06:52.160 I mean, Leona Alislev said all kinds of things about the Conservatives.
00:06:55.360 Michael Ma said all kinds of things about the Liberals.
00:06:57.560 But at the end of the day, I mean, I think perhaps with Laurie Idlude,
00:07:00.160 she may be able to make the argument that I want more for the North
00:07:05.460 and I'm going to, as a representative of the North in the Liberal caucus,
00:07:09.340 I could get more accomplished.
00:07:10.440 I would push back, though, and say how many of those folks were successful
00:07:13.240 in coming back in the House after they switched over.
00:07:15.200 I think that's the difference.
00:07:15.800 It's a very low return rate.
00:07:17.200 Well, Linda Stronach was elected as a Conservative by about 800 votes
00:07:21.700 and as a Liberal when Paul Martin...
00:07:23.440 None of this really matters anymore.
00:07:25.440 But the whole point is that we now have them admitting that no,
00:07:28.500 Carney is not getting his majority anymore.
00:07:30.560 I actually want to go back to the very beginning of the show
00:07:32.820 when they were first introducing the segment,
00:07:35.580 because that's when Greg McEacher had also said something else
00:07:38.500 that I find is a funny admission.
00:07:40.040 True there.
00:07:40.580 When he says we'll have a by-election,
00:07:42.740 by-elections, very deliberately, plural,
00:07:45.360 because Mark Carney is a very precise man.
00:07:47.000 Does he just mean Chrystia Freeland and, say, Matt Jenneru,
00:07:50.120 or does he mean also Bill Blair and Jonathan Wilkinson?
00:07:53.120 Like, what do you make of that?
00:07:55.440 I think he's leaving options open, which is not a bad thing to do.
00:08:00.200 Like, there's been lots of speculation.
00:08:02.100 It's a bad thing to do when apparently there isn't going to be
00:08:05.640 a bunch of mass resignations.
00:08:07.740 You only leave the door open for the idea there may need to be more by-elections
00:08:12.360 if you know something.
00:08:14.360 And Mark Carney knows something.
00:08:15.360 That's why, instead of just saying a couple,
00:08:17.060 because there's only two that may need to happen, Freeland and Jenneru,
00:08:20.000 but Jenneru's not even leaving until later in the spring.
00:08:23.280 You said a few for a reason, because it's more than two.
00:08:25.660 And I've said this in the last video where I covered the CBC
00:08:28.320 and they're acting really obtuse of whether a few means more than two
00:08:32.080 or it just means two.
00:08:33.860 You'll only leave the door open, like Greg McEachern is saying,
00:08:36.780 because there is internal instability in the Liberal Party.
00:08:40.100 And like I said last episode,
00:08:41.820 they refused to investigate Mark Carney's leadership.
00:08:44.600 They refused to actually admit that this may have something to say
00:08:48.540 about what people think about Mark Carney and his own party.
00:08:51.860 Whenever there was a floor crosser from Polyev, 0.95
00:08:54.540 it immediately became an anti-Polyev, this shows Polyev's suck story.
00:08:58.660 But if anyone leaves Mark Carney,
00:09:00.740 oh, it just shows they wanted to go on to bigger and better things
00:09:03.400 or they don't want to be in politics anymore.
00:09:05.800 It was completely innocent.
00:09:07.480 The reasons a Liberal would leave.
00:09:09.020 But it's always like, there's always,
00:09:11.360 it's always demonstrates some nefarious narrative
00:09:13.840 or nefarious truth about Polyev conservatively.
00:09:16.880 It's very maddening.
00:09:18.280 ...about what Bill Blair and Jonathan Wilkinson
00:09:20.960 and Christopher Freeland were going to do.
00:09:22.580 There's been lots of speculation about what Bill Blair
00:09:25.720 and Jonathan Wilkinson and Christopher Freeland were going to do.
00:09:27.940 We've known, like, there has been a slow roll
00:09:30.680 of Christopher Freeland's departure over the last couple of months,
00:09:33.900 over the fall.
00:09:34.460 So I think he's being smart and leaving that open.
00:09:38.960 I also think that, you know, he's done very,
00:09:42.920 the Prime Minister's done very well with, you know,
00:09:44.760 a caucus that he inherited.
00:09:47.140 He was able to recruit some folks.
00:09:50.440 So it's not a new government.
00:09:52.480 This is, I love that.
00:09:53.680 That is, in my mind, a full admission.
00:09:56.000 Because I have seen a lot of CBC power in politics
00:09:59.800 where they talk about this is a new government,
00:10:02.000 Mark Carney's transforming how we do government.
00:10:04.880 This is a new, very different feeling Liberal Party.
00:10:08.040 But as soon as things start, as soon as bad things start happening,
00:10:11.160 as soon as Mark Carney's leadership doesn't seem as stable
00:10:14.160 and unifying as people were claiming,
00:10:16.740 suddenly, well, you have to realize Carney inherited all this
00:10:20.480 from Justin Trudeau and it's many of the same faces
00:10:23.460 and he might not have the same relationship with these people.
00:10:26.880 It's like whenever Justin Trudeau starts screwing up
00:10:29.780 at any point in his government and they said,
00:10:32.080 well, we inherited this thing from Stephen Harper
00:10:34.980 and the Conservatives.
00:10:35.940 It's like, oh, shut up.
00:10:37.700 Oh, shut up. 0.99
00:10:38.900 Do you guys have agency or do you not?
00:10:40.960 And then in the case of Mark Carney, it's like,
00:10:43.380 is this a new government or is it not?
00:10:45.500 So whenever something apparently good happens,
00:10:47.720 or at least we're trying to spin something as good,
00:10:49.700 it just demonstrates how new and different
00:10:51.600 this Liberal government is.
00:10:53.100 And every time there's problems, it sounds like,
00:10:54.620 oh, well, you know, Mark Carney didn't have his ideal team
00:10:57.060 because you have to realize this is the old government
00:10:59.460 that he inherited from Justin Trudeau.
00:11:01.900 This is just so tiring.
00:11:03.360 That he wanted to serve with him.
00:11:05.900 And I think, you know, the fact that I'm very cognizant
00:11:10.840 that people like to say that Liberals are arrogant
00:11:13.180 and I want to avoid that.
00:11:14.600 But the reality is right now,
00:11:16.380 he's doing pretty well in the polls,
00:11:19.020 you know, head to head against Polly F. 0.99
00:11:21.040 He's literally down in the polls since the election day.
00:11:25.780 Election day, he won by 2.3%,
00:11:28.180 which is actually a pretty big win.
00:11:30.080 I think it actually may have been two and a half,
00:11:31.540 but he still barely won the majority of his minority government
00:11:34.900 because the Conservatives in all of the closest ridings
00:11:37.840 where the Liberals beat them,
00:11:39.240 the Liberals only won in all of the ridings
00:11:41.600 that make up their minority 0.98
00:11:42.740 by around 8,000 votes combined in those ridings.
00:11:45.720 That's really, really tiny for a margin of victory
00:11:48.820 when that was like 20 seats or 22 seats or something
00:11:52.000 that the Liberals ended up beating them by for this minority.
00:11:54.960 That should be terrifying
00:11:56.620 that now they're actually closer
00:11:58.980 than just two and a half percent away from each other.
00:12:01.140 You have new nanos polls and new polls from other pollsters
00:12:04.400 showing the Liberals continuing to decline.
00:12:07.440 And even in the polls where the Conservatives
00:12:08.820 are declining to poll to poll,
00:12:11.580 the thing is the Conservatives might fall half a percent,
00:12:13.420 but the Liberals fell 1.7%.
00:12:15.780 The gap is narrowing.
00:12:17.420 And this is in spite of the fact
00:12:19.560 that Mark Carney is in the proverbial driver's seat.
00:12:23.100 He has the ability to pass popular policy
00:12:24.960 or at least pitch popular policy.
00:12:27.120 If he was doing so, he would actually be increasing.
00:12:29.440 It's very easy to increase your popularity
00:12:31.360 or stabilize it if it was already high in your first year.
00:12:35.460 We're not even through a year.
00:12:36.840 And basically, Mark Carney's in a knife fight
00:12:38.840 with the Conservatives that he shouldn't be in
00:12:40.560 if he was doing a good job.
00:12:42.500 So if there are by-elections right now,
00:12:44.660 this may give him the chance
00:12:46.680 to bring some people into government
00:12:48.180 that he'd like to have.
00:12:49.080 Sure.
00:12:49.580 And frankly, I mean,
00:12:50.340 no one would ever give you an allegation of arrogance
00:12:52.240 when you're deliberately reducing your seat counts
00:12:54.420 in a minority parliament, right?
00:12:55.680 There's a confidence there.
00:12:56.880 I mean, we know Christopher Freeland
00:12:58.660 is going to work for a foreign government.
00:13:00.540 So all this, we can always...
00:13:02.120 David Cochran coming in with the save.
00:13:04.520 In fact, you could actually say some good things
00:13:06.240 about Mark Carney,
00:13:06.960 that he's going to be losing multiple MPs.
00:13:09.200 It's actually a very strong
00:13:10.220 and confident thing to be doing
00:13:11.520 to have people resign on you and leave.
00:13:14.960 Make it make sense.
00:13:16.720 But anyways, that should be it for this video, guys.
00:13:19.020 Thank you for waiting for me
00:13:20.780 to make a video today late into the night.
00:13:22.800 I was doing a bunch of meetings in Vancouver today.
00:13:26.180 It was great hanging out
00:13:27.240 with 1BC leader Dallas Brody and the team,
00:13:30.340 just getting some stuff up and running
00:13:31.940 because we're going to start aggressively
00:13:33.600 building the party right now in the year 2026.
00:13:36.880 So if you're in British Columbia,
00:13:38.800 always go check out the 1BC party.
00:13:41.200 We are going to be coming out
00:13:42.020 with a lot of content over this year.
00:13:43.700 Hopefully you guys like it.
00:13:45.340 But with all of that,
00:13:46.380 thank you guys for watching.
00:13:47.660 Like, share, subscribe.
00:13:48.980 Hit the join button if you want to help support the channel.
00:13:51.480 And I'll see you guys all next time.