The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - July 08, 2026


Trudeau-Appointed Senator Crosses Floor To Join Conservative!


Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

170.0

Word count

2,759

Sentence count

136

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

11

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 A lot of news coming out of the Canadian Senate over the past 36 hours.
00:00:04.840 Yesterday, the Pierre-Paulie of Conservatives took a blow when one of their Quebec MPs, Richard Martel,
00:00:11.500 decided to accept an appointment to the Canadian Senate by Prime Minister Mark Carney.
00:00:16.840 Now, the Carney Liberals were highly motivated to get Martel out of the House of Commons and into the Senate
00:00:22.400 because his riding of Chiquitimi-le-Fjord is a riding the Liberals can win in a by-election.
00:00:29.220 Usually Martel would win that riding with about 40% of the vote,
00:00:33.120 which is a pretty good margin considering both the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals are competitive in the riding.
00:00:39.420 But in 2025's federal election, Richard Martel won with only 34% of the vote,
00:00:45.420 with both the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois getting 31%.
00:00:49.720 So this is obviously not good for the poly of conservatives,
00:00:53.560 although they have taken the tactic of kind of happy talking their way through the story,
00:00:58.120 congratulating Martel on his appointment and saying he's done such a great job in the House
00:01:03.120 of Commons and they wish him luck in the Canadian Senate standing up for the conservatism. In a
00:01:08.480 certain sense, this was kind of an unavoidable conflict with Martel. Polyev apparently only
00:01:13.640 heard he was going to get the appointment a few minutes before it happened, but Martel is a red
00:01:18.680 Tory and I could see that him never really getting along with pure Polyev and it would have been a
00:01:23.920 stake for Pauliev to try and appeal to the politics of Richard Martel, because if he did that, he would 0.81
00:01:29.960 start taking off all the actual Conservatives in the party, and there are more actual Conservatives
00:01:34.780 than there are kind of wishy-washy, mushy middle red Tories like Richard Martel. But this morning,
00:01:41.460 the Conservatives got some positive news out of the Canadian Senate, with a Trudeau-appointed
00:01:46.860 Senator deciding to cross the floor and join the Conservative Senate caucus. The Conservative
00:01:53.060 Senate leader Leo Housakis put out this statement this morning saying, I'm pleased to welcome
00:01:58.360 Senator Jim Quinn to our growing Senate, conservative Senate caucus. Please read my
00:02:04.020 statement here. And it says, the Honorable Leo Housakis, leader of the official opposition in
00:02:09.680 the Senate, is pleased to welcome Senator Jim Quinn to the conservative Senate caucus. Since
00:02:15.540 his appointment to the Senate in 2021, Senator Quinn has brought decades of experience in the
00:02:21.240 Canadian Coast Guard, the Federal Public Service, and as President and CEO of Fort St. John to his
00:02:27.480 work in the upper chamber. Through his contributions in the Senate, he has established himself as a
00:02:33.100 thoughtful and experienced voice on issues important to New Brunswick and all Canadians.
00:02:38.300 Senator Quinn's decades of public service and leadership and commitment to New Brunswick
00:02:42.000 will make him a tremendous asset to our team, said Senator Housakis. We don't need to go into
00:02:47.140 more of this statement, but you get the point, it's boilerplate. Congratulations to Jim Quinn
00:02:54.400 for joining the Conservative Senate caucus. And this is a significant win because this guy is not
00:03:01.120 a former Conservative politician. He is not a Conservative at all previously. He was part of
00:03:07.000 the Canadian Senate group, which is one of the two Senate groups that Justin Trudeau would appoint
00:03:12.620 senators into to pretend to be all nonpartisan and whatnot. There's the independent Senate group,
00:03:17.880 which is usually full of very left-leaning progressives, and then the Canadian Senate
00:03:22.320 group, which is kind of centrist-y, center-left to center-right senators. And so Jim Quinn,
00:03:29.040 in the aftermath of Richard Martell being appointed to the Senate, has decided to go
00:03:35.440 from the Canadian Senate group to the Conservative Senate caucus, which does help offset some of the
00:03:41.480 bad news for Pierre Polyev with Martel leaving to get his Senate appointment. Because we know
00:03:47.160 that the Canadian media is going to spin Richard Martel into a giant leadership crisis for Pierre
00:03:53.040 Polyev, even though the only way of avoiding Richard Martel leaving would have basically
00:03:58.680 been turning back into Aaron O'Toole or becoming like Doug Ford or Jason Kenney. There is no way
00:04:04.620 you're going to please people who probably should have been liberal MPs before this. If they want to
00:04:09.920 good. At least they're not crossing the floor and joining the liberal House of Commons caucus.
00:04:16.240 Anyways, so now I need to move on to another story involving the Senate, and that is one of
00:04:22.600 Mark Carney's other appointments, which is Tom Pitfield, who was a liberal campaigner as well
00:04:29.640 as a former, I believe, like advisor or some sort of like a staff member for Prime Minister Mark
00:04:37.980 Carney. This is obviously not very ethical looking. It's even less ethical than basically
00:04:44.180 bribing a conservative MP to take a Senate appointment so you can try and win his seat
00:04:48.700 in a by-election, because this guy has basically been working to get liberals elected his entire
00:04:54.580 career. I feel like the Senate should mostly be people who are not complete partisan hacks,
00:05:00.440 but Mark Carney has recently changed the rules so that he can appoint pretty much anyone he wants,
00:05:05.680 whether they be opposition MPs to get them out of the way for a by-election, or loyal liberal
00:05:11.960 hacks that he now wants to, you know, reward with a 20-year-long career in the Senate getting a
00:05:18.740 high-paying job, and all they have to do is rubber stamp liberal legislation that comes through.
00:05:24.380 A friend of the channel, Kirk Lubomov, here says, Mark Carney is trying to keep a straight face
00:05:29.060 explaining why he appointed his campaign staffer and advisor to the Senate. And he's quoting him
00:05:35.580 here, but I want to actually hear it directly from him. And then I'm going to get into a little
00:05:39.360 bit more of what Kirk was saying there.
00:05:42.080 Is Tom Pitfield's appointment to the Senate a reward for helping you win the election?
00:05:46.260 Absolutely not. Tom Pitfield is an entrepreneur. He's a philanthropist. He's got deep
00:05:52.260 technological knowledge, knowledge about technology. And particularly with respect
00:05:59.280 to the last aspect, it's, you know, we look at the Senate as a whole and what the competencies
00:06:03.820 are. And obviously familiarity with government, familiar with legislative processes, other things
00:06:09.420 are helpful. But we want some core competencies in there as well. And where the Senate is more
00:06:16.440 deficient and there's people who are willing to serve, I'm very pleased that they are.
00:06:20.520 Sorry, but what about Tom Pitfield? What about his experience that's so unique to anyone else
00:06:27.380 that you could appoint? With Jim Quinn, the guy who just crossed and joined the Conservative
00:06:32.640 a caucus, the guy's never been a conservative politician. He's never actually been in partisan
00:06:38.060 politics. He's always been a longtime public servant and bureaucrat. And he, you know, as it
00:06:43.620 was mentioned before, he was the CEO of the Port Authority of St. John's, you know, lifelong New
00:06:49.360 Brunswicker. That's why he was appointed. He's kind of like what you would consider to be like
00:06:53.940 a stalwart public servant that they are then putting into the Senate who has a lot of
00:06:59.600 administrative experience. He has a lot of experience with ports and exports and shipping
00:07:04.660 and all that stuff, maritime type policy. So they put him in there. He's actually always been a
00:07:10.360 somewhat more fiscally conservative guy, but on social issues, he's probably a typical New
00:07:15.000 Brunswick or a little more socially conservative, but not so much so that he would himself be like
00:07:20.780 a partisan conservative politician. So he crossed over to the conservatives now, but Tom Pitfield
00:07:27.260 is somebody who, yes, might be a philanthropist and business owner, but his biggest credits are
00:07:34.260 helping elect liberals like Mark Carney and operating as one of his advisors post-election.
00:07:41.860 He's the only one you can find. Now, previously, the prime minister always recommends senators for
00:07:48.080 appointment in the Senate, but there was a rule where if the person, I forget who's the person
00:07:52.940 who ends up officially putting them into the Senate, but that person would take in the
00:07:57.220 recommendation and mostly just process it and put them through, unless the person was clearly
00:08:03.980 partisan. That doesn't mean that they are very liberal. You can put very liberal people, if you
00:08:08.440 want, into the Senate. The problem is, is putting someone who directly worked for your campaign and
00:08:15.040 was a staff member of yours into the Senate, because now it's turning the Senate into just a
00:08:20.780 way of rewarding political allies with high-paying jobs that really don't take much effort to
00:08:26.360 actually, you know, keep that job. And so now I want to get back to what Kirk Lubomov was saying
00:08:31.560 there in his post. Continuing down from the quote that he posted here, he says,
00:08:39.380 surely if you were going to for domain experience, you wouldn't be appointing a longtime liberal
00:08:46.100 insider who is part of a basic analytics firm. Oh, and he is married to a liberal MP, Anna Ganey.
00:08:54.100 I'm sure it's nothing. Yeah, this totally doesn't have anything to do with trying to basically
00:09:00.900 please insiders of your party, paying them off with these highly prestigious Senate jobs with
00:09:06.960 big expense accounts, with a really good salary, and with the prestige that comes with the office.
00:09:12.300 It's just Tom Pitfield just happened to be the best man for the job.
00:09:17.540 And all of this is coming on the heels of a new scandal, a new scandal on top of another new scandal,
00:09:25.120 because the condo bailouts was already a scandal in and of itself in Vancouver.
00:09:30.460 But now there's another scandal because it turns out only 15 weeks before the Kearney Liberals decided to bail out the condo developers
00:09:39.560 in the Lower Mainland, mostly in Vancouver and Burnaby,
00:09:44.320 Brookfield just happened to take a big stake in a lot of these condo developments
00:09:49.780 right in time to get a big bailout from the Liberals.
00:09:53.880 That feels a little bit corrupt,
00:09:56.620 and the Liberals have just shut down the Ethics Committee investigation
00:09:59.720 because they don't want any questions being asked about this.
00:10:03.300 But Tom Pitfield, no, is all above board.
00:10:05.680 Because as we know, everything the Carney liberals do is totally above board. That's why they're making the American Alberta Premier Daniel Smith jump through dozens of hoops to maybe one day get a pipeline built. But in the meantime, the Carney liberals insider friends are going to benefit massively from the carbon capture pathway scheme, as well as the higher industrial carbon tax rates that is going to pump up the value of their carbon credits.
00:10:34.640 But what do I know? I know nothing, everyone.
00:10:38.660 The last thing I want to talk about in this video is kind of going back to the Richard Martel, Chikutimi, Lefjord issue.
00:10:46.080 There are a lot of hacky conservatives in the media and from strategy firms and campaigning organizations trying to attack Pierre Polyev.
00:10:56.260 Because, oh my goodness, there's a rupture in the party right now.
00:10:59.780 Because, look, Richard Martel is leaving to the Senate.
00:11:03.520 And Polyev attacked Corey Tanike at the stampede.
00:11:09.500 And I don't know, apparently we're supposed to feel bad for Corey Tanike.
00:11:14.180 Apparently this is a massive faux pas for Pierre Polyev to refer to him as a liberal lobbyist from out east.
00:11:22.340 He is a liberal lobbyist.
00:11:23.720 Just because he is associated with Doug Ford doesn't mean he's not a liberal.
00:11:27.640 Doug Ford himself is a liberal.
00:11:29.300 And I find it highly suspicious that we have all these people only now coming out to critique and attack Pierre Polyev.
00:11:38.300 There was this truly bad article that came out from Brian Lilly at the Toronto Sun, I believe.
00:11:45.420 Yes, the Toronto Sun.
00:11:46.780 That acted pretty much as just an infomercial and a defense of Corey Tanike and Doug Ford.
00:11:53.540 It just so happens that Brian Lilly lives with and is dating Doug Ford's director of media relations. That's not weird. That's not really sleazy. And I've known this about Brian Lilly for a while. It in fact was a news story a few years ago. But people who only got involved in politics in the last two years don't really know about it.
00:12:15.240 because I'm a big supporter of the new blue party of Ontario.
00:12:18.860 And I know a lot of people will say, well, I don't really like them.
00:12:22.220 They can't win any seats or whatever.
00:12:24.080 It's like, it doesn't really matter, guys. 0.99
00:12:26.520 Doug Ford's PCs suck. 0.97
00:12:28.800 And I am perfectly willing to vote for a conservative alternative option 1.00
00:12:32.800 while the PC party of Ontario sucks. 0.98
00:12:36.260 I fully endorse right now the Manitoba Keystone party. 0.98
00:12:40.320 The Keystone party in Manitoba and Wally Daldrich is currently running
00:12:44.300 in the by-election for Keystone in the PAW's by-election.
00:12:48.420 If you are in the PAW, vote for Wally Dalgerton in the Keystone party 0.99
00:12:51.840 because the Obi-Kan PCs are worthless. 1.00
00:12:56.180 They are worthless. 0.82
00:12:57.160 If a party is barely not even attempting to represent conservative values,
00:13:03.160 you have to leave.
00:13:04.760 And that is what Corey Tanike and Doug Ford represent.
00:13:08.840 But we have all these flack catchers suddenly coming in to defend Corey Tanike
00:13:12.920 right in time for Corey Tanike to try and take out Pierre Polyev in favor of either bringing in
00:13:20.540 Doug Ford, Mark Malaruni, or Jason Kenney to run for the Conservative Party leadership.
00:13:26.520 You guys know me. I actually am very willing to criticize Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives
00:13:31.800 when I don't think they're doing the right thing, when I don't think their policy is bold enough,
00:13:36.080 even when I want Polyev to desperately take off the navy blue tie and wear a different colored 0.71
00:13:42.080 a tie, because that is one of my big pet peeves
00:13:44.080 with him, is that he wears too much navy
00:13:45.780 all the time, and it's a little boring. I liked
00:13:47.960 his stampede outfits. They were fun.
00:13:50.200 People are trying to make fun of his stampede outfits.
00:13:52.440 Guys, corny outfits
00:13:54.040 at the stampede is what the stampede is about,
00:13:56.300 and if it ever starts getting classy,
00:13:58.540 the stampede is over. 0.93
00:14:00.000 Class will destroy the stampede. 0.95
00:14:02.040 We need corniness and cheesiness.
00:14:04.500 His outfit should be so cheesy
00:14:06.060 it should come with a side of sour cream.
00:14:08.540 But anyways, all these people
00:14:10.200 who are now coming out of the woodwork to say,
00:14:11.860 oh, Polyev's starting riffs in the party. 0.99
00:14:14.860 Shut up. 0.98
00:14:15.660 You guys have never criticized him 0.99
00:14:17.000 for anything constructive in the past,
00:14:18.900 and now you're showing up for all these abstract complaints
00:14:21.560 about, oh, Polyev is attacking a good conservative man
00:14:25.400 like Corey Tanike.
00:14:26.380 No, Corey Tanike's corrupt.
00:14:28.620 Corey Tanike's a machine political organizer. 1.00
00:14:31.620 He sucks at it too. 0.97
00:14:32.800 He just lost an embarrassing leadership campaign 1.00
00:14:35.340 for Caroline Elliott alongside a bunch of other dorm room jokers.
00:14:39.360 These guys don't know what they're doing.
00:14:40.640 they simply do well in politics because they are good at making a lot of promises to people
00:14:46.460 and a lot of people have special interests in getting that politician elected who cory to
00:14:51.940 nike and these other people are associated with anyways i'm going to cover more of that in another
00:14:57.220 video because i find the current setup to try and take out polyev as the conservative party leader
00:15:03.340 to be disgusting dishonest and completely bad faith the other day this was a couple months ago
00:15:10.000 I saw someone criticizing Polly of speech at the Ottawa Canada Strong and Free Network event saying, oh, my goodness, it was a low energy event with not a lot of people. And that's called Canada Strong and Free, guys. It's not exactly TPUSA. It's a mostly an event for kind of insidery, culturally conservative red Tories. And that's kind of it.
00:15:30.420 You don't get a lot of kind of maverick conservatives showing up to Canada Strong and Free Network.
00:15:35.840 And then suddenly people saying, oh, my goodness, it wasn't a very well attended event from people I have never heard criticized Polyev before.
00:15:42.280 Always strikes me as are you working for some sort of a strategy firm because it never made any criticisms before.
00:15:48.420 And suddenly you're here with microwaved garbage criticisms because you can only make bad criticisms of Polyev because any criticism you probably make of him on policy would also apply.
00:15:58.880 even harder to Doug Ford or Jason Kenney or Mark Mulroney.
00:16:03.160 But again, what do I know?
00:16:04.720 Anyways, with all that being said, thank you guys for watching.
00:16:07.320 Make sure to like, share, subscribe.
00:16:09.100 Consider hitting the join button and becoming a member of the channel.
00:16:11.640 And I'll see you all later.