00:00:00.000Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here, and yes, we are back in the normal Calgary studio for the week.
00:00:07.120I thank you all for putting up with me making videos from the corner of a Victoria hotel room
00:00:13.200over the last month. That's just what I have to do while I'm working at the BC legislature.
00:00:18.740But we are back for an entire week in the normal studio, and the first story I'm going to cover
00:00:24.760while I am back is the funniest thing currently going on in Canadian politics. There might be a
00:00:30.780bit of a long explanation for what is going on here, but it's worth it because it is absolutely
00:00:36.840hilarious. So there's this circular firing squad going on right now between Prime Minister Mark
00:00:44.440Carney, Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith, former Liberal MP Navdeep Bains, and the Ontario Liberal
00:00:52.320Party. Now, if you don't already know, Nate Erskine-Smith has been trying to leave federal
00:00:58.460politics basically since the last federal election happened. He only ran for re-election in 2025
00:01:05.760because when Mark Carney was running to replace Justin Trudeau as the Liberal Party leader,
00:01:11.540he promised Nate that you're going to be the housing minister if I win. Now, Mark Carney
00:01:18.480was actually technically good on his promise there, he did make Nate Erskine Smith the housing
00:01:25.740minister for approximately a month and a half. Remember that after Mark Carney became the
00:01:32.980liberal leader, as well as the prime minister without a seat, he basically acted in that
00:01:38.840capacity for maybe two and a half weeks before calling the election. And that election then
00:01:43.800went on for about 50 days or so. I guess Erskine Smith was housing minister for two months. But
00:01:49.640shortly after the federal election, when Mark Carney won his initial minority government that
00:01:54.820turned into the monstrosity that is the current majority government, he then replaced Nate Erskine
00:02:00.800Smith as housing minister with Gregor Robertson, the former awful mayor of Vancouver, who is like
00:02:07.980a parody level bad choice for housing minister considering how much housing prices spiked while
00:02:13.580that guy was the Vancouver mayor. But never you mind that fact. We want to focus on Nate.
00:02:19.540Ever since then, Nate has been sniping at Mark Carney for, you know, frankly, good reason.
00:02:24.900He screwed him over and he started doing a lot of things that Nate did not like. He started
00:02:29.040criticizing him during the Air Canada flight attendants strike and many other issues where
00:02:34.620he thought that Mark Carney was not being left wing and progressive enough. Nate is what I would
00:02:39.580call like an orange liberal. He is very much a progressive, progressive liberal. He's like if
00:02:45.980Mayor Pete Buttigieg was straight. That is who Nate Erskine-Smith is. Although if Pete Buttigieg
00:02:51.840was straight, but also a vegan. Whatever. So Nate got the opportunity to jump into Ontario liberal
00:02:59.700politics, which he had actually previously dabbled in before. When Bonnie Crombie became the Ontario
00:03:06.080liberal leader. Nate Erskine Smith came a very close second place to her in that leadership
00:03:11.700race, but because he didn't win, he obviously stuck to federal liberal politics. But since
00:03:19.360Mark Carney has lost a bunch of liberal MPs who were retiring or taking other roles like Bill
00:03:25.880Blair in Scarborough Southwest, it's kind of created this domino effect that has benefited
00:03:31.300Nate Erskine-Smith's dream to go back into Ontario liberal politics and completely wash his hands
00:03:37.360of Mark Carney. He hates Mark Carney, Mark Carney hates him, but because Bill Blair ended up leaving,
00:03:44.140that opened up a federal Scarborough Southwest by-election seat. And then Dolly Begum, who was
00:03:52.720oddly enough an NDP MPP in provincial politics in Ontario, she ran for the Ontario liberal
00:04:00.320nomination or the federal liberal nomination for Scarborough Southwest. She easily won because it's
00:04:05.520a super liberal riding, but that opened up a provincial riding. And Nate Erskine-Smith has
00:04:10.320been running for that provincial riding. And because the Ontario Liberal Party, I'm not sure
00:04:15.520if they like him or don't like him, but his main rival for becoming the new Ontario Liberal Party
00:04:22.500leader, Navdeep Baines, doesn't like him. He has been basically mobilizing candidates to try and
00:04:28.260shut down Nate's jump from federal to provincial. Now, Mark Carney also doesn't really want Nate to
00:04:35.100leave because he has an extremely thin majority. It's currently only a two-seat majority, but
00:04:42.120Jonathan Wilkinson on the other side of the country in North Vancouver, Capilano, is also
00:04:47.400going to be stepping down. So Mark Carney doesn't really want things to be constantly popping loose
00:04:53.260every other month, where he loses, you know, Freeland and Bill Blair and somebody else,
00:04:59.080and then he has to replace all of them in a by-election, and he gets the majority because
00:05:02.780of the conservative and NDP floor-crossers, but then a bunch of his own liberal MPs then suddenly
00:05:07.800leave again, so he's falling constantly in and out of majority. But obviously, Nate does have
00:05:14.300leverage on Carney, because if Carney doesn't give him his blessing to leave, Nate, being a more
00:05:19.320orange liberal could always go and join the federal NDP and screw over Mark Carney and
00:05:24.720deny him that seat, or he could do basically anything else to damage Mark Carney's current
00:05:30.080government. And it has resulted in this absolutely wild video of Nate basically having this weird
00:05:38.780shotgun wedding style endorsement video from Mark Carney. It is already five minutes into this video,
00:05:46.660six minutes in, because that's just how much background is needed to understand
00:05:51.460how funny the video I'm about to show you is. So, here is the video. This is just moment one.
00:05:58.900Nate Erskine-Smith's post from 20 hours ago. Now, the voting, I believe, just got cut off or is
00:06:03.740being cut off this second right now in the nomination for Scarborough Southwest. It was
00:06:09.180this Saturday. Nate Erskine-Smith in this post yesterday says, leaving federal politics to make
00:06:14.280a bigger difference, and it was good to catch up with the Prime Minister as we head into an
00:06:19.660important weekend. Look at this body language right here. Nader Skynesmith is getting, the guy
00:06:27.380on the right, is getting the endorsement of, at least the partial endorsement, of Prime Minister0.86
00:06:33.300Mark Carty, hands in his pockets, staring daggers at him like he just wishes the old man would die.
00:06:40.180like these two visually hate each other even when it benefits nate to get this endorsement because
00:06:48.020kind of mark carney had been withholding but nate probably has leverage on him and has threatened
00:06:52.780that you better endorse me and make sure the ontario liberals let me run in scarborough
00:06:57.100southwest or i'm going to like destroy you now we have this very awkward endorsement video where
00:07:04.200carney doesn't want to be there nate doesn't want to be there but he needs carney and so
00:07:08.740Carney is there so let's watch this thing you can have the ideas you can have the hard work but also
00:07:14.640to be really on the ground uh really on the ground with your constituents uh knowing what's going on
00:07:20.040what their needs are working together and you know it it hurts uh uh in in some respects you're going
00:07:26.620but i understand it in some respects because he wants him to go and there's a part of Carney that
00:07:31.920wants Nate to go and there's a part of him that needs him to stay because you're going to be more
00:07:37.240the ground uh you know working at the provincial level uh working for the folks uh i hope uh in
00:07:42.920scarborough uh you know in health care and education uh making lives better uh helping
00:07:47.640to grow that economy and uh we'll be right right there alongside you can have did you guys see this
00:07:54.520video did you just see what the heck just happened in this video so we have this very awkward
00:08:02.360endorsement from mark carney where i does he even say nate's name we have to watch this again i am
00:08:07.740going into body language expert mode even though i'm not a body language expert just watch this
00:08:12.880thing have the ideas you can have the hard work but also to be really on the ground uh really on
00:08:17.500the ground with your constituents uh knowing what's going on what their needs are and working
00:08:21.420together and you know it it hurts uh uh in in some respects you're going but i understand it
00:08:27.840because you're going to be more on the ground uh you know working at
00:08:30.960has he even said nate erskine smith's name in this entire video
00:08:35.280uh the provincial level uh working for the folks uh i hope uh in scarborough
00:08:39.760uh you know in healthcare and education uh making lives better
00:08:43.200uh helping to grow that economy and uh we'll be right right there alongside
00:08:47.680no guys you don't you do not yet understand how funny this video is
00:08:54.160so we have there's no opening saying hey nate i i hate to see you go but i know you got great
00:09:00.080things you're going to do in ontario i could do on the spot here a better endorsement video
00:09:06.800nate we worked each with each other for the past year you've been a fantastic team player
00:09:11.520a real grassroots liberal uh you are doing a great job representing the constituents your
00:09:16.880constituents of beaches east york i always love your input and but i understand that you have a
00:09:21.760bigger mission uh in ontario provincial politics uh that's where you're drawn and i absolutely
00:09:27.280commend you for wanting to work for the people of ontario on the provincial level where you feel
00:09:32.640you're needed that would have been better but he's not saying a word and nate nate my boy here can't
00:09:39.760even take his hands out of his pockets for this thing what you just sounded standing there i'm
00:09:45.840wearing sweatpants by the way just you know to ruin the secret of of what i look like when i'm1.00
00:09:49.840Just standing here like that, just like that, just sitting there with the face of, yeah, you give me that endorsement, you stupid old man.1.00
00:10:01.060Yeah, you better say all the words I told you to say.1.00
00:10:03.500And like Carney is umming and ahhing his way through the entire thing.
00:10:08.580He sounds like a broken record player that keeps skipping constantly.
00:10:40.480It's a shotgun wedding endorsement where, like, right off, maybe they just had AI edit out the red dot on Mark Carney's head, and if he didn't get through the video, they're like, you know, people are going to take the shot on him or something like that.
00:10:54.580Neither one of those men want to be in that room at all.
00:10:59.960But now we need to go into some stuff about the nomination today.
00:12:27.780But when he made that statement about, oh, people could be getting disenfranchised by the Liberal Party eliminating the Ontario Liberals, eliminating 1,800 memberships, I actually think there might have been, that actually might have benefited him, but he just knew he should say that anyways.
00:12:42.740because this nomination race has obviously been, like, there's been a setup by Navdeep Baines,
00:12:50.220the former extremely corrupt Liberal MP, to try and make sure that Nate doesn't gain traction for
00:12:56.820the Ontario Liberal leadership race by winning this Scarborough Southwest seat. Here's Nate
00:13:02.120talking, just to give you a little bit of background on what his campaign sounds like.0.56
00:13:05.420this nomination has been just absolutely awash with corrupt ethnic politics. People showing up0.91
00:13:12.960who clearly don't know who they're voting for. They are told who to vote for. They are handed
00:13:17.060a sample ballot that is all written in Bengali, telling them to vote for this person, that person,
00:13:22.180and leave Nate off your ballot. And I think the Ontario Liberals realize, although there's many
00:13:28.400people who like Navdeep Bains, corrupt people, I think the Ontario Liberal Party doesn't exactly
00:13:34.420want to be taken over by Navdeep Bains either. And so I think they've been having to just
00:13:39.880wipe out a bunch of these obviously fraudulent Bengali signups in the area. But here is Nate0.83
00:13:46.660Erskine-Smith in the day before the vote trying to rally people to come out for him. Again, this
00:13:53.040is the kind of political drama that I live for. By the way, this is the type of stuff that happens
00:14:00.520in all nomination races, it's disgusting and parties need to clean it up. Just the vote buying
00:14:06.680that goes on, the elimination of random memberships, the provincial party or the
00:14:13.580federal parties trying to choose who they like better. But check this out. We have won four
00:14:18.300federal elections. No one else in this race has the track record of delivering as an elected
00:14:23.680official or winning elections. And let me just make this very clear about the team. No one else
00:14:29.120has the strength of team that we have to win in Scarborough Southwest in a biolish.1.00
00:14:34.220I've taken leadership roles, not only chair of the Canada Bangladesh Friendship Group,
00:14:37.840I was co-chair of the all-party anti-poverty.
00:14:39.780He's literally wearing a Bangladeshi flag pin right now, a Canadian Bangladeshi flag pin,
00:14:46.860because that is how you have to win a nomination in Scarborough Southwest. Now, that doesn't even
00:14:53.200mean that it's a majority like bangladeshi or bengali or whatever i think bangladeshi it's not
00:14:59.280even that it's a majority riding in terms of they're not the majority of the population
00:15:03.280but the problem is what i would call like a ward healer can go around just sticking ballots in
00:15:07.840people's hands to go vote for their guy they can be a minority but they end up being a large
00:15:12.400portion of the people who vote because community organizers know how to basically incentivize
00:15:17.600people to buy a membership and show up and vote many people who cannot speak english many people
00:15:23.120who have no clue what the major parties in Ontario politics are.
00:15:26.680I was a minister of housing and infrastructure and delivered billions of dollars in affordable housing and transit for the city of Toronto.
00:15:34.400So there's a track record of getting things done. And there's also a track record of winning elections.
00:15:40.540Now, what I would call Scarborough Southwest a white progressive riding.
00:15:46.300Now, that doesn't mean that there isn't non-white people in the riding.0.51
00:15:48.920But I mean, the politics that dominate the area in a general election are progressive, progressive, orange politics. That's why it was previously represented by Dolly Begum as an NDP MPP, because although that she probably got the nomination from basically the ethnic political machine, at the same time, it's very much that like left wing NDP kind of default voting riding.
00:16:13.400And Nate is going to be the guy who's going to try and win it back for the Liberals, who actually came third place in the last Ontario provincial election.
00:16:21.400But we have Laura Stone here from The Globe and Mail, I believe, reporting on just how crazy this nomination race has been.
00:16:29.480She says here, at the Liberal nomination meeting in Scarborough Southwest, candidates are giving speeches to a near empty room while supporters line up waiting to vote.
00:16:38.620Candidates are handing out sample ballots, suggesting a top two choices.
00:16:42.980Now, the thing is, what's so significant about nobody listening to the speeches is because the voters don't know what's going on.
00:16:50.080They don't know about the campaign issues.
00:16:52.140They don't know who any of these people are.
00:16:53.520They've just been told to vote number one and number two because it's a ranked ballot next to people that somebody from their community told them to vote for.
00:17:02.580This is a prime example of, like, the type of political corruption that you get in Canadian politics.
00:17:07.500Nate Erskine-Smith is telling people to rank people as well. This Muhammad Nasrin person as number two. Now, it's probably because he knows he can beat that candidate on first ballot anyways, and he has a sort of alliance with them.0.88
00:17:24.680But you'll notice that all of his stuff, at least here, is English.
00:17:30.960But now let's look at the literature that they're handing out from the other side.
00:17:35.680This is who his opponents, Hassan al-Hafz and Kandira Jackson, are handing out.
00:17:47.720Other than the names, everything is in Bangladeshi.
00:17:52.540yeah that's not concerning about our politics that the language bangladeshi might be technically
00:17:58.140more useful for winning an ontario liberal nomination than english is and what you'll
00:18:04.860notice if i get to this video of erskine smith in line with voters is that yeah there are a lot
00:18:11.740he's talking to everybody but if there's ever a white voter that person that you
00:18:15.740can tell is probably voting for him based on how they interact
00:18:21.660now definitely nate erskine smith also has his own uh bangladeshi organizers in the riding as well
00:18:42.540but that's kind of telling when it seems like there are bangladeshi only candidates and then
00:18:49.120there's smith who again i don't like his politics but at least he's somebody who like the general
00:18:54.900public would maybe like you know they understand him he has a platform past vote for me because
00:19:00.800you're you know because your mosque leader told you to like it's wild what's going on but this
00:19:07.120is all probably a front for nav deep baines trying to make sure that nate erskine smith doesn't run
00:19:14.120for the Ontario Liberal leadership with any credibility, because when, because if he loses0.72
00:19:19.100the nomination for a singular writing, it's going to look really stupid if he then tries to run for0.98
00:19:24.780the Ontario Liberal leadership. And Navdeep Bains is, again, famously corrupt. Navdeep would steal1.00
00:19:32.260anything but a red hot stove, allegedly. And he left politics after at one point having a massive
00:19:39.040gambling debt that somehow overnight got wiped out. That guy is going to be potentially running
00:19:44.360to be the next premier of Ontario. And this is where I would have to say the lesser of two evils
00:19:49.460here is clearly Erskine Smith. The straight vegan Pete Buttigieg is better than the corrupt
00:19:57.960Calistani idiot. But yeah, so Steve Pakin here says, former Toronto mayor Art Eggleton has come1.00
00:20:05.560out to the Ontario Liberal Scarborough Southwest nomination, meeting to show support for Nate
00:20:10.900Erskine-Smith. Now, this is, again, just all funny, because clearly Mark Carney didn't want
00:20:18.340to endorse Nate. In fact, it kind of benefits him if Navdeep Bains ends up becoming the Ontario
00:20:25.160Liberal Party leader, because Mark Carney is already kind of an ally of Doug Ford. He doesn't
00:20:31.760really care who's the premier of Ontario, but he does care about keeping his majority intact.
00:20:39.260And so that endorsement video, if we can go back to it, was very deliberately awkward because
00:20:45.740neither of those two men like each other, but Nate obviously is trying to leave and does not
00:20:51.800actually respect Carney at all. Again, the image here is amazing. Carney never naming him,
00:20:57.660not really looking at him, Nate just staring daggers at the Prime Minister the entire time
00:21:03.340with his hands in his pockets. This is art. This is the closest thing that we can get to the
00:21:11.160greatest art that's ever been made. Nate sitting there, hands in his pockets, Mark Carney acting
00:21:16.520like he's being held hostage to give this non-endorsement to Nate because Nate really
00:21:52.080And Nate probably has a much easier time doing that than the dude who surrounds himself with people who think that maybe the Air India bombing was an inside job or something like that.
00:22:19.200I ran for the Calgary Signal Hill federal conservative nomination back in 2024. And I got kicked out because they just didn't want me to win. I'm not even kidding. Just people inside the party didn't want me to become the member of parliament. And so even though I had like 1000 supporters, they just kicked me to the curb. And then they actually kicked somebody else out. I don't even agree with the person who was Lila here. She used to be the deputy premier to Jason Kenney. You know, me and Lila are like, we're like the furthest apart people in that
00:22:49.180race but we're like friendly now from sharing the experience of being kicked in the face randomly0.97
00:22:53.260but nominations are just such a crap show in canada we need to go to the united states system
00:23:01.320of having open primaries yes you can maybe have some signature requirements to get into the race0.97
00:23:06.160maybe you can have some other buy-in you have to be able to pay a certain amount of money to show
00:23:10.200that you're serious or whatever you have to maybe max out a donation to get into the race fair
00:23:15.320enough but the problem with that we have in nomination races is that it's so artificial
00:23:21.420you enter a riding where it's maybe let's say 10 bengali or bangladeshi sorry but they end up being
00:23:28.420like all of the of the people like um they become ever all the people voting in the nomination
00:23:35.440because their people can they can be easily told what to do by community leaders where you know
00:23:40.800your average kind of white middle class person is saying if someone came to the door and you say
00:23:44.980you're going to vote for this person. They'd say, screw you, get off my property.0.99
00:23:49.160Open primaries would be great, where all you need is where it's not even party membership based.0.97
00:23:55.020It's just whoever wants to vote can vote or something like that. We just need a better
00:23:59.180system in this country. Because right now, too many people are chosen with these extremely
00:24:05.420flawed nominations that don't really represent not only what the general public wants, but not
00:24:11.180even really what party members want because you have so many people who couldn't care less about
00:24:15.080the party signing up and buying memberships probably because the money was given to them
00:24:18.900to do it or they've been incentivized with some benefit to do so. And those are the people choosing
00:24:23.820who's actually going to become the new like representatives of a party locally. Anyways, so
00:24:30.820with all that being said, thank you guys for watching this video. I will be probably covering
00:24:36.320the outcome of this race because they're going to be counting votes this weekend. And I do not
00:24:41.340doubt that there's probably going to be legal challenges to who actually became the Ontario
00:24:45.840Liberal Scarborough Southwest leadership or nominee. And if Nate leaves, guess what's going
00:24:52.180to happen? We're going to have a Beaches East York federal by-election. And that is actually
00:24:57.320riding that the current NDP leader, Avi Lewis, actually has a chance to win. It is a very,
00:25:03.960again, progressive, progressive riding. You lose your life. They must put you in prison if you
00:25:09.860don't go to at least two pride events a year in that riding. It's just the culture around there.0.89
00:25:15.060But anyways, with all that being said, thank you guys for watching. Like, share, subscribe. And if
00:25:20.140you want to become a channel member to help make the channel more sustainable for me, consider
00:25:25.000hitting the join button below the video and making a small contribution to allow me to be less
00:25:30.320reliant on the YouTube algorithm. With all that being said, it's great to be back in the Calgary
00:25:35.200studio, and I'll see you guys all later.