Liberals should be in PANIC MODE ahead of vote!
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Summary
Wyatt Claypool explains why Prime Minister Mark Carney's deal with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is not good news for the Trudeau government, and why they should be worried about the Conservative motion to force a vote on the MOU.
Transcript
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Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here. Like I said in my last video, Prime Minister Mark Carney and his
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Liberal government should be in panic mode over the motion vote being put forward by Pierre
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Polyev's Conservatives. Carney thought he was going to be able to rebrand himself from Mr.
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Green Energy Subsidies to Mr. Pipeline by simply signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Alberta
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Premier Danielle Smith. Now I've also previously explained why I do not blame Premier Smith for
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signing this agreement with Mark Carney, even though she probably knows Mark Carney is not
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serious about actually getting a pipeline built. She kind of has to go along with it or else the
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Liberals and the media will say that she's the big holdup in getting a pipeline done. But now the ball
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is in Carney's court because Danielle Smith is fully on board. She's even willing to make some
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concessions to actually get the pipeline done. And now the federal Conservatives and Pierre Polyev
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are going to force Carney and all of his Liberal MPs, of course, including the ones on the West Coast,
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to vote on whether they are actually wanting to build a pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast
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and suspending the tanker ban in order to be able to actually ship those oil and gas products over to
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Asia. And the media is even catching on to the fact that this looks really bad for the Carney Liberals
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because there are so many of his Liberal MPs who have a big green Liberal base that they rely on to
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get reelected. These people have environmentalist voters that they don't want to tick off by voting
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in favor of the MOU. They've been assuring people in previous interviews a couple of weeks ago,
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oh, all this doesn't really matter. It still needs sign off from David Eby. It still needs sign off
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from every First Nation. It still needs sign off from whoever else we can find in order to block
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the project. But now the Conservatives are saying, okay, regardless of all that stuff, that's also a
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problem with the MOU. It gives everyone and their cat a veto. But you guys specifically, do you want a
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pipeline? Will you get rid of the tanker ban? Will you say that First Nations can't have a veto, but
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maybe they just need to be consulted? And now all these people are in panic mode because they don't
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know how they're going to vote because, again, they're stuck between a rock and a hard place.
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Voting in favor of this doesn't even exactly mean a pipeline is going to get built. And voting
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against it is going to tick off all the business Liberals, and voting for it is going to tick off
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all the environmentalist Liberals. But check out this panel from the Power in Politics CBC show.
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Good to see you all. Kate, I want to start with you. We saw what Corey Hogan said there.
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Andrew Scheer was on the show earlier saying it's unclear if the Liberals actually support a pipeline.
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I mean, they lost Stephen Gilbeau. They signed a deal with Daniel Smith. Seems clear to me.
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What do you think the implications are of this vote tomorrow?
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Yeah, well, it is hard for the Liberals to message voting on wording that is lifted straight from the
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MOU on the pipeline and an endorsement, yay or nay, on that. It's difficult to message that
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as a political game. I think what the Conservatives are doing is, you know, exposing a pretty
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uncomfortable reality for the Liberals that not everybody is sure about whether or not
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the government is approaching this in the best way. And, you know, obviously, you spoke about
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the departure of Stephen Gilbeau. We saw a letter on Friday from the Liberal MP for Honoré Mercier
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saying that he would have to do some more thorough consultation with his constituents to determine...
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He's the chair of the Environmental Caucus. Eric Sanpia.
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Yeah. The funny thing is, before she said that, David Cochran, who is the host of Power
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and Politics, says, well, you know, it seems pretty clear to me the Liberals are in favor
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of the MOU. Hey, they signed the dang thing with Premier Smith. It's like, yes, there's
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a difference between signing something and actually saying that you are in favor of a specific
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outcome. The MOU, yeah, there is text basically saying that we should build a pipeline from Alberta
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to the West Coast. But there's also a lot of hedging language in there. It also ends up giving
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a veto to the province of British Columbia and to the First Nations. And so it effectively is Carney
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saying yes, while all these other groups say no, and him using that excuse not to get it built.
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So what all the conservatives are doing is saying, OK, this is I'm kind of repeating myself a little
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bit, but I think you'll see why I'm doing it here. He's saying, OK, regardless of all that,
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in a perfect world, would you guys want to force through a pipeline and make sure the tanker ban
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is lifted? And if they can't vote for that, they are they have no credibility because they've
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already ticked off the green base by signing the MOU in the first place. And if they can't vote for
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this, they're going to tick off all the business liberals who are going to potentially go back and
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start voting for the conservatives because they'll actually get the pipeline done. Again, Carney wanted
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to be Mr. Pipeline, but he wanted all the benefits without any of the negatives that comes along with
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it was ticking off his left progressive flank. That's right. So you see a lot of tension starting
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to brew, I think, in terms of how the government is going to come across this. And again, it's not
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to suggest that the path through consultation is not important. It's not to suggest that none of that
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shouldn't occur. It's simply just putting the question to caucus about whether or not they support
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something like this proceeding. And so I do think that it will be challenging for the liberals to
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have anything but a united front. Because again, the MOU is predicated on a lot of that consultation
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that is required with First Nations and work with the province of BC in order to actually expedite
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development. But on that point, if you vote yes for it now, before there's a proponent, before there's
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a route, before there's consultation, because I don't know if there's ever going to be sign-off if it's
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the northern route. I mean, does Corey Hogan have a point there that it could be a signal you're sending
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to the First Nations that what they have to say doesn't matter in advance? Well, again, you have
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David Cochran doing some defense for the liberals here. He's already arguing, oh, this motion vote's
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kind of silly because we don't even have a proponent yet. So all this doesn't matter. I'm like, so you're
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just agreeing the MOU means nothing. Carney was signing a meaningless document because there is no
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proponent for the pipeline, not because they don't want a pipeline, but because the current
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regulations in place make it impossible to actually build a pipeline efficiently that would actually be
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able to turn a profit. It's not difficult to turn a profit with a pipeline. They're built all over the
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world. It's just hard to do one in Canada because they're just so, the government is so anti-oil and gas
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federally and in British Columbia that you're going to be spending multiple billions more dollars
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building this thing than you would if it was in Texas or if it was in Brazil or if it was in Qatar or
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Saudi Arabia. Obviously, there is like David Cochran coming out and saying, well, it's kind
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of silly. We're voting on something when there's no proponent. Goodness, just show us your Liberal
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Party card, dude. Goodness. No, I would say no, because again, the MOU and projects proceeding
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is predicated on what's happening exactly as you say. And so really, it is an endorsement of what
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the Prime Minister would like to see as, from what I can tell, effectively government policy
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on the advancement of energy infrastructure projects. And it should not be a difficult
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question for Liberal Caucus to answer. I would absolutely agree with that. This one should be an
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easy one. If you're in favor of a pipeline, you should be able to vote for it. And even if they
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end up all rounding, they round all the people up and they vote for it, the problem is, is that
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they've already basically signaled this was a difficult thing for them to maneuver. This shouldn't
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be difficult at all. The fact that we are hearing drama behind the scenes, the fact that
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Stephen Gilboa already left over this, is demonstrating that the Liberals probably don't
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really want a pipeline getting done. They want the benefits without having to build it.
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What do you think the conversations behind the scenes in the Prime Minister's office
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are like today in anticipation of tomorrow's motion?
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It's unclear, obviously, because we don't know what those are like. But, you know, are they
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going to be forcing a vote saying, you know, we really need all of the caucus to support
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this memorandum of agreement simply because it demonstrates that you support me, the Prime
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Minister, in my way of having bold vision, building new things. If there's crack in that
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coalition and they expose that, then I think that that becomes a narrative. So I think there
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will be quite a lot of pressure on Liberal MPs to support this, especially since the Conservatives
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didn't introduce anything new. They use the exact same language that's in the memorandum of agreement,
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including the statement about negotiating with First Nations. All they they got rid of was that
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the federal government said that they had to they had to do that for they had to do that,
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that negotiations with First Nations as one of the conditions for putting forward the pipeline. But
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it's already in there. Just the condition part isn't.
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It's a little bit different because Carney's words make it sound more like you need consent. And,
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you know, like basically giving someone like Grand Chief Stuart Philip a veto. That's a little bit
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different than just saying consultations. I think the consultations are really silly. Because when
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you're talking to First Nations band councils, you're not talking First Nations people, you're
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talking to a very left wing, activist controlled board, it would be like having you need so you need
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to do something that kind of is in the vicinity of Victoria. And we need to ask the Victoria City
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Council, what we can do is like, well, it's Victoria City Council, the federal government can do
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whatever they want. Obviously, you're going to get a left wing opinion from the Victoria City Council.
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This isn't exactly what the average person of Victoria thinks, even though it's a far more
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of a left wing city than others, you're going to get the most left wing opinion from that City
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Council in a part of that motion. So it's gonna be difficult for the Liberals to quibble with that
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and say, oh, we're not voting for it because you didn't completely mirror our language.
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If tomorrow's motion does expose potential divisions here within the Liberal Caucus, how do you think
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Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives, how do you think they should try to use that to their advantage?
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Well, I think they're just going to keep on chipping away at it because ultimately, you know,
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the more they expose the Liberals disenchanted with each other, the more difficult it is for them to
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want to go forward with another election. Their coalition sort of falls apart. And we've seen that
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in other governments. You know, all governments are essentially coalition governments. And I think
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the most famous one was Brian Mulroney, where he had, you know, Western alienation type people in his
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caucus. He had a very large Quebec caucus. And when the tensions with Meech Lake became so great,
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we had the formation of the Bloc Québécois. You had the formation of the Reform Party. And that
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really exploded the Conservative consensus, the Conservative coalition. And in theory, the same
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thing could happen with Mark Carney, because he doesn't have nearly as strong a majority as
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Brian Mulroney did. But clearly, he doesn't have the same sort of grip on the nation. He's still a
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relative political newcomer. I'm going to cut off there because it is a good point to make, too.
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We already know there's about five or six Liberal MPs who are likely to be resigning
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from caucus. These are people who don't really want to stick around anyways. They could even just
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on their way out signal they don't want this. Nate Erskine-Smith is a big green Liberal. And he
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already doesn't like Mark Carney and is likely planning on leaving caucus this winter to go and
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run for the Ontario Liberal Party leadership. We already see Stephen Gilbeau on his way out.
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Chrystia Freeland's going to be on her way out. There's rumors about Melanie Jolie and some other
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people. Jonathan Wilkinson. Jonathan Wilkinson's on the West Coast, I believe. Someone can
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correct me if I'm wrong. Regardless, he is still more of a green Liberal and not like a full
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environmentalist like Stephen Gilbeau, but he was obviously a right-hand man to Justin Trudeau.
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And Justin Trudeau was super anti-pipeline. This guy on his way out, as a part of his legacy,
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could say, no, I didn't want a West Coast pipeline and then leave. That's the situation
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that Carney's in. So for all the talk a few weeks ago about how Polyev's in a bad position,
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because look, Chris Dontremont left, a guy who pretty much just left for petty personal reasons.
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Well, Carney has an ideological rift opening up, and this is a rift that the NDP will exploit. A party
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that only got one-third of the vote in 2025 that they did back in 2021 will absolutely try and win
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all these progressives by voting against the motion and showing that we're the party for all the
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environmental people. And yeah, is that a minority position in Canadian politics? Sure, but it's
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bigger than six percent, so they're going to be able to gain stuff from the left flank of the Liberal
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Party, because a lot of Liberals thought that this was going to be like the new, I don't know, that
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Carney was going to respect the hyper-environmentalist positions of Justin Trudeau. And so yeah, he's kind of
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a little bit stuck between a rock and a hard place. And what is Mark Carney messaging on right now
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on social media? Well, this is from four hours ago. We're partnering with Ottawa to streamline the
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construction of thousands of new affordable homes across the city. Okay, keep going down. French, French.
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Canadian identity at home and abroad is rooted in the French language. Hosting the Somat de la
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Francophonie is an opportunity to elevate our leadership and partnership with Francophone
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countries around the world. Okay, like nine hours ago today with Mark Sutcliffe in Ottawa, we announced
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bold new initiatives to work with the city of Ottawa to build blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you keep
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going down. Our core mission is to build a building as a positive endeavor. It's not about what we are
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against, but what we are for. We want to build together in partnership with Indigenous people.
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So he was just at this Indigenous forum talking to all the very left-wing Indigenous leaders. Again,
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the average Indigenous person is in favor of pipelines. You can see the polling. All these
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organizations are effectively left-wing front groups, just like the teachers' unions and a lot
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of nurses' unions are pretty much left-wing front groups based on who's leading them.
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Carney, based on posting that video, talking about how, you know, we need to come together
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in a forum with Indigenous leaders who don't want the pipeline. Well, that's a bit weird considering
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that you currently have the gauntlet thrown down in front of you by pure poly of the Conservatives
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that you should be voting, like, to vote in favor of your own MOU. Now, maybe he still does it,
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but he's really trying to split the baby down the middle here. Now, I just want to look up the MOU
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from Pierre Polyev again and look up some other things from him, but it's very simple what they
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are getting the Liberals to vote on. I have it right here. I think he literally has it as his pinned tweet.
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This is the opposition motion. A. Take note of the Memorandum of Understanding between Canada and
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Alberta of November 27, 2025, and B. Supports the construction of one or more pipelines,
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enabling the export of at least one million barrels a day of low-emission Alberta bitumen
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from a strategic deep water port on the British Columbia coast to reach Asian markets, including
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through an appropriate adjustment to the Oil Tanker Memorandum Act, while respecting the duty to
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consult Indigenous peoples. This should be very easy for them to vote for, but remember, there are
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Liberal MPs in places like Victoria who are probably not going to be able to vote for this, because it's
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just become an extremely left-wing party. Like, literally, they are taunting the Liberals really
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hardcore on this one for a reason, because they know the Liberals do not actually have a unified
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caucus. And you even have Pauliev here mocking Don Davies, who was saying he was against
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the motion vote. And Pauliev says, NDP voting tomorrow to block a new pipeline to this Pacific
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and keep the costly Liberal Oil Tanker ban in place. In fairness, at least we know where the NDP
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stands. Meanwhile, Mark Carney is hiding under a rock, refusing to tell us his position.
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Know how Carney could immediately take all the gravitas out of Pauliev's position right now?
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He could just say, of course we're voting in favor of it tomorrow. What is this? This is
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an easy thing for us. We were the ones who put forward the MOU. We will be voting in favor of
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a motion supporting our own MOU. He can't do it, because he actually doesn't know where his people
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are at on it yet. But anyways, well, that's just the position that you end up finding yourself in
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as a Liberal with no particularly consistent views these days under Mark Carney. Everything is going to
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be a struggle every single time, because nobody knows what the Liberals think on anything, because at
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this point it's more of a consulting firm than an actual political party with coherent beliefs.
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Now, they're left-wing, but you don't know in what way they're left-wing every single day. Are they
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at least willing to say, hey, we're like pro-worker, pro-pipeline Liberals, or are we
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environmentalist Liberals? And Carney's trying to have it both ways, and that's just not going to work.
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At least Trudeau was always the anti-pipeline environmentalist Liberal. Carney's not going to
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convince the business Liberals that he's cool by signing this MOU and then never actually getting the
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pipeline done. And there are going to be key measures in the next few months where people
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are going to be like, well, what company are you working with? Well, what have you done to actually
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get David Eby to sign on to it? Well, what have you done to get the First Nations to say yes?
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And if that's not happening, you're going to get a lot of people down on Bay Street wondering why the
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heck they donated to this guy. Anyways, well, with all that being said, thank you all for watching.
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Like, share, subscribe, and I will be back next time.