Mark Carney is LOSING a Liberal MP - Erskine-Smith resigning!
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Summary
Wyatt Claypool talks about the first Liberal MP to leave office, Nate Erskine-Smith, and why he may run for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party in the upcoming leadership election. Also, a new report says that the Ontario Liberals are in the lead in the primary race to become the next party leader.
Transcript
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Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here. I predicted it, and now it's coming true.
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Mark Carney's Liberal Party is going to start having Liberal MPs resign on them,
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which is going to throw a big wrench into Carney's scheme to try and entice a couple more Conservative MPs
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It's far less enticing to cross the floor as a Conservative, even if you're a flaky one,
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knowing that you're not even joining a majority government.
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Chris Dontremont left the Conservatives for petty reasons,
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and Michael Ma probably left knowing that if just one more Conservative crossed,
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because Liberal MPs are going to just be leaving office entirely,
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meaning that Carney doesn't just need one more Conservative MP,
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he'll need two, if not three, and it could be up to five or six,
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because a lot of Liberals do not like working with Mark Carney.
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It's not actually much of an ideological schism inside the Liberal Party.
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The Liberal Party hasn't budged an inch since Justin Trudeau left ideologically.
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There are stylistic differences between Trudeau and Carney,
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Yeah, he got rid of the carbon tax, but that was more so
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Polly have got rid of the carbon tax by pressuring Carney into doing it.
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But outside of a few small reforms that Carney's made, it's pretty much all the same.
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But today I want to talk to you guys about the first Liberal MP
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In fact, even if he doesn't end up doing the thing
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that will be his excuse to leave office, I think he would have left anyways.
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That MP is Beaches East York MP, Nate Erskine-Smith.
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Now, this guy, as you will remember, wanted to be the housing minister,
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He was one of these Liberal MPs like Sean Fraser,
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who was planning on not even running in the 2025 election when Trudeau was still around.
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he brought these guys back to run again, promising them powerful positions.
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Now, he actually did follow through and kept Sean Fraser in a prominent position.
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He is actually at his most prominent right now, despite being wildly incompetent.
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But Erskine-Smith was only made housing minister for about three weeks
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and then after the election, swapped him out with Gregor Robertson,
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Like, Erskine-Smith would be an incompetent housing minister.
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He's a hard-left, hyper-progressive in the Liberal Party.
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But it's kind of embarrassing to be replaced with Gregor Robertson,
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That's the guy Carney trusted more than Erskine-Smith.
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And this is actually where the stylistic stuff with Carney starts to chafe
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Carney seems to like to work with people that he identifies with
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And ever since then, Erskine-Smith has been sitting in the Liberal backbenches
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I can't exactly blame him, but he attacked the Liberals
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over how they handled the Air Canada flight attendants strike.
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He's obviously always wanted to just leave and go do something else.
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And that something else is running for the leadership
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As you can see in this report, it's as new as, what is this,
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Nate Erskine-Smith says he's now building a team to run for Liberal leader.
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Everything depends on the strength of that team,
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including the decision to join the race, he added.
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The details don't really matter because it's all just kind of surface-level
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political maneuvering that Erskine-Smith is doing right now.
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He's very clearly going to leave because I think he would leave even if this
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opportunity fell through because he obviously does not like working with
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He openly takes shots at him, he feels betrayed, even I think specifically said
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I feel betrayed after he was removed as the Housing Minister.
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He has a good reason to potentially pursue the Ontario Liberal leadership.
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The Ontario Liberal Party may be second place when it comes to the overall vote
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count in the province, but they're in third place when it comes to the seats.
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And Erskine-Smith actually ran for the Ontario Liberal Party leadership race last time
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And although on first ballot he didn't have that much support, just 25%, although
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compared to everyone else in the race it was good, he actually came very close on
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final ballot against Bonnie Crombie, her beating him 53% to 46%.
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And at the time you can kind of forgive Erskine-Smith for losing because he was just sort of a liberal
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MP at that point, not really that noteworthy, whereas Bonnie Crombie was the mayor of Mississauga
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for a few terms, so she had high name recognition and probably a lot of other political connections that
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Although still, Erskine-Smith gave her a run for her money.
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And so it's not even just the potential that he might run, he currently has a website up
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soliciting people to sign up for his leadership race, and nobody else is actually running against
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This is an open field for him, and if he gets in, I think nobody else bothers running.
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He's kind of like the Aaron Gunn for the Ontario Liberal Party.
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Aaron Gunn, of course, having kind of started helping with the BC Conservatives, but then he
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went Federal Conservative, and he didn't end up, he's not running in the BC Conservative
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Leadership election, but he's a very prominent figure in BC Conservative politics.
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I think the only reason nobody else has gotten into this race yet is simply because they know
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if Nate runs, no one else is going to, no one else is going to win.
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Plus, nobody really else wants the Ontario Liberal leadership who's a prominent individual.
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So the entire thing hinges on if Erskine-Smith runs or not.
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He's saying that this all depends on the strength of his team.
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You don't even really need a strong team considering nobody else is even opposing him.
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Like, the race opened up on December 17th, or I think it might have actually been somewhere
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in November, that it became possible to sign up and run for the leadership, and still nobody's
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The fact that nobody's done it for a couple months probably just means they're waiting
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But this is not the only person who is going to leave the Liberals.
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We also know, guaranteed, Christia Freeland is going to be leaving office in 2026 before
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Because she is going to become, I believe it's like the CEO and the president of the Rhodes
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Scholarship, or the Rhodes Society, which requires her to move to Oxford, England.
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She obviously wants nothing to do with federal liberal politics anymore.
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Another person who's probably leaving is Stephen Gilbeau.
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He feels betrayed by Mark Carney, and he's not the personality who is going to sit in the
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back benches after he resigned from cabinet and just sit there and be curmudgeoned for the
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Another name that's probably going to be moving on, that is Jonathan Wilkinson, a Vancouver
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area politician who you would say is kind of part of the old Trudeau guard.
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And that's kind of a lot of the people who were thrown under the bus by Mark Carney when
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He's ticked off several individuals, including people like Jonathan Wilkinson, because he
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The only thing that's really new in Mark Carney's government is he's like sidelined, like five,
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And then he's kind of brought in some other outside people who usually were just sitting
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Or he brought in people who had never even run for the liberals before.
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Like, I don't even know, like Greg Robertson is a good example.
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And that guy who used to be on CTV News, Evan Solomon, who nobody cares about, he's like
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I don't know what he even does, but apparently he does something.
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We have Erskine Smith very, very likely leaving.
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Christy Freeland is a guaranteed leave in the next few months.
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Jonathan Wilkinson wants to become Canada's High Commissioner of the United Kingdom because
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Ralph Goodale is probably going to be stepping down from that role in the UK.
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And then I think I've also heard Melanie Jolie might be leaving and a couple of other individuals
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who at this point I think are just burnt out and they are not helping their legacies by
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So Carney's in a bit of a weird position because this kind of guarantees an election is going
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to happen in 2026 because not only do some of these MPs occupy ridings where the NDP or
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the Bloc Québécois could actually conceivably beat them.
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In Jonathan Wilkinson's riding, in a by-election, depending on what the turnout looks like,
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Before Wilkinson, it was a conservative alliance reform riding.
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And yes, the demographics and the boundaries have changed a lot since then.
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But the fact that used to happen means in a by-election, depending on the turnout, it
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So Carney, even if none of these people get beaten by one of the other parties, it's also
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possible that the other parties, while a couple of these MPs have resigned their seats, just
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trigger an election right there and then because Carney will definitely not have a majority at
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He will keep, maybe he gets a majority still, but he will constantly fall in and out of a
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If a conservative suddenly crosses the floor tomorrow and Carney technically has a majority,
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well, in two weeks' time, let's say Erskine-Smith resigns to go run for the Ontario Liberal Party
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Maybe you end up replacing Erskine-Smith very quickly and then another conservative crosses the
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I don't know why we're talking about this happening.
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The two guys who left did it for like purely petty reasons, so I don't actually see, I don't
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know who else it would be to leave at this point.
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I've heard really ridiculous names thrown around and usually it gets debunked quite quickly.
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But even if another conservative ended up joining, okay, I guess they're in a majority
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But then some Jonathan Wilkinson leaves and you're out of a majority and Stephen Gilbeau leaves
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and you're two or three seats deficit to a majority.
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And then the conservatives, NDP and the block can just gang up and force an election.
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Plus, all of this is going to make Carney's government look very chaotic.
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Constantly trying to scrounge for new MPs in order to hold on to power, trying to rely
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on floor crossers that makes them look really sleazy and anti-democratic.
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Carney should be very familiar with not being in very good positions since he just put himself
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in one yesterday with his extremely stupid remarks about Donald Trump's capturing of
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I don't think I need to harp on more about this topic.
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But all you need to know is that, yes, Carney is actually probably going to start having
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a very hard time in his government trying to get some sort of a majority together or even
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By the way, the NDP leadership is going to wrap up sooner or later, I think in the next
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So depending on when Erskine Smith leaves, he might, as a bit of a screw you to Carney
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on the way out, is open up a riding that the NDP leader, a new NDP leader, if they're
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not a current MP, could actually potentially win.
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Rob Ashton or Avi Lewis could potentially win a riding like Beaches East York.
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The Conservative has never won that riding in forever.
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But Stephen Gilbose, the Bloc used to have that riding and the NDP used to have that riding
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Before him, in 2015, it was an NDP who held the riding for 2011 to 2015 or 2019.
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And then before that, it was Gilles Decept, the Bloc Québécois leader's seat.
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And then we've already talked about Jonathan Wilkinson.
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And then Chrystia Freeland at one point actually was an NDP as well.
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So again, depending on the news cycle, Carney could lose some of these seats.
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But again, it doesn't even matter because as these seats open, there's opportunities
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Anyways, OK, that's truly the end of the video.
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I keep like, you know, winding myself back up and then having to speak more.
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But I have to remember, Wyatt, you're allowed to speak less.
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I remember a comment yesterday said, Wyatt, you seriously talk too much.
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And I was just thinking in my head at the time, well, I'm like, well, it's a talk show.
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But anyways, with that all being said, thank you guys for watching.