After losing the election, Mark Carney seems to have some wind in his sails. For the first time, there's starting to be reasonable speculation about if Pyropolev can stay in the leader's chair until the next election.
00:02:17.280so it's good or it's like a cafe oh yes yeah so anyway uh yeah the with with uh the three
00:02:25.680by-elections it became official but it was very obvious with these by-elections he was going to
00:02:30.220get it's now official uh that we have a majority government here we do uh macaveli would be proud
00:02:34.940of uh carney's scheming and uh the last year uh you know he didn't really get the majority though
00:02:42.260i don't think derek from the by-elections he got it from the floor crossings because as you said
00:02:47.040all three of the uh the writings were liberal uh they stayed liberal and then that uh turban
00:02:54.480writing you were talking about the the liberal vote gained here's the tory vote stayed home
00:03:00.000significantly lower than uh than the the recent election but don't yeah but don't forget it was
00:03:06.320the five floor crossings even if they had just won these three by-elections without the floor
00:03:10.880crock floor without the floor crossings excuse me they would still have a minority government
00:03:16.080so he engineered floor crossings you know he sent out people to talk to uh conservative mps identified
00:03:22.480which ones had no ethics and uh pulled them across the floor and there's rumors that it said there's
00:03:29.040more to come and that he's still trying to get some some more tories to cross nigel uh i think
00:03:35.040think that the timing of of how Carney coordinated this in so much as he can coordinate it was was
00:03:42.520very smart on his part if they had the by-elections and then got the floor crossing the headline would
00:03:49.400have been the floor crossings gave them the majority which that's a pretty cynical thing
00:03:54.860to do but they got five floor crossings four conservatives one new democrat before the
00:04:00.500by-elections and then they had three by-elections they didn't pick up a single seat in the by-elections
00:04:04.660They just reaffirmed them as Liberal. Two slam-dunk Liberal seats, one very thin one between the Liberals and the Bloc, but all three were Liberal.
00:04:14.640So the headline here was not... I fell into the trap a bit, Doc, with Dave.
00:04:22.100They played a nice trick here, where all the media were able to report, ah, with these by-elections, they got a majority.
00:04:28.900But if the liberals had three liberals had not resigned or one been forced to have a by-election because it's too close, there wouldn't be a majority. So I think this was kind of brilliant engineering of the timing in so much as we can assume these things were planned.
00:04:43.200Yeah. Well, nobody said Mr. Carney was a fool. And clearly this has worked out to make a good story. But just to say it again, you know, Mr. Carney did not win a majority. He maneuvered a majority from, you know, going to the least worthy elements in opposition parties and making an offer that they thought was enticing.0.95
00:05:06.600we'll see soon enough i guess what they what was promised to them but uh it's not that was not a
00:05:13.480win but look you know you do what works when you're in politics and he did what worked so he
00:05:20.040now however you whether you approve of the way he engineered it or not he has his majority and
00:05:25.880the thing that we're anxious about now what's he going to do with it one thing that um as a you
00:05:31.400know as a as a naturally fearful person when it comes to politics deeply cynical and and0.97
00:05:39.160anxious about what the crafty bastards are going to do next you're probably going to0.91
00:05:43.800one thing that's not changed and won't change until there's a prorogament is the composition0.96
00:05:48.920of the committees and what has prevented from mr mr carney from doing his worst in the past year
00:05:54.760it's the fact that the opposition parties dominate the committees he can't change that
00:05:59.880until he prerogues parliament and promoguement doesn't necessarily mean there'll be an election
00:06:05.160but it does bring all the legislation that is in the pipeline to a halt and it all has to be
00:06:10.840reintroduced so there is a cost in legislative time if you choose to go that way so you know
00:06:16.680things would be worse um cory with the the what i'm not sure what this every political party is
00:06:26.840a coalition of sorts i i'm not sure you know you're conservatives you got ren tories you got
00:06:32.500social conservatives you have populists quebec nationalists you know you have all these different
00:06:37.400you know you got the big business crowd you got all these different factions i'm not sure what
00:06:42.480you call the liberals at this point you've got gladu who is a uh at least until a week or so
00:06:48.380ago a right-wing pro-life social conservative and you've got her sitting in the same caucus as
00:06:53.900Stephen Gilbeau and what's-her-nuts who crossed the floor from the NDP, the MP from Nunavut,
00:06:59.340I can't recall her name. You've got extreme left-wingers, and I don't think the Conservatives
00:07:05.060actually have the extreme right-wingers, or certainly not many, but someone who at least
00:07:10.040had a pretty solid Conservative track record, even a social Conservative, which just doesn't
00:07:14.820endear you with your own party's leadership in the Conservative Party. Now, I know when Glenn
00:07:19.440across the floor and they were asked she was asked about her pretty solid pro-life voting
00:07:23.520record she says oh i've always been pro-choice what are you talking about as if like her entire
00:07:28.280political career never existed but uh how the hell is does carney hold something together
00:07:35.120that spans from stephen gilbeau to marilyn gladden well because that's virtually the
00:07:43.380entire canadian political spectrum this is the coalition of the weasels the opportunists i mean
00:07:47.620he's brought them in clearly because he's offered something more than they were getting
00:07:53.140in opposition seats which is a pretty healthy compensation as it sits so he's got a bit of a
00:07:59.300juggling act though because it also shows their loyalty is questionable to their own principles
00:08:04.180to their ideologies and they won't hesitate to turn on him if it doesn't serve their purposes
00:08:11.300either so he's going to be juggling the favors he offered whatever they may be and you know we can
00:09:20.200So, you know, one's crazy and one's just an opportunist, I guess.
00:09:23.720But by hook or by crook, as Nigel said, that's the way the game goes.
00:09:27.860He played with the rules you got and he got himself a majority.
00:09:30.780But it doesn't mean he's got necessarily a straightforward path ahead of him yet.
00:09:35.680He's got a heck of a lot more power and authority now than he did a week ago.
00:09:39.900But he's going to have to get a few more, I think.
00:09:42.840The other thing he's going to have to look for is what's he going to do for the loyal liberals who've been there all the time and now suddenly see the new boys.
00:09:49.240Well, yeah, we're going to end up with a cabinet of like, you know, 120 people or something.
00:09:53.640Well, Nigel, perhaps I put it incorrectly to Corey talking about the ideological divide, because we have in the Trudeau era, and to an extent beginning in maybe with the Stéphane Dion era going back,
00:18:11.800But I think now he's not on death row, but it's no longer a sure thing, I think, that he does make it to the next election.
00:18:21.840Well, nothing's ever a sure thing, is it? I mean, your political career, you would probably be quick to agree with me on that.
00:18:28.780What I've observed in the last few days is just kind of the usual media pylon where everybody wants to be the first to see the end coming for the, you know, the principal player in the plot, which is Pierre Polier in this case.
00:18:41.800Oh, he's done. He's finished. Now it's all over. They're looking. There will be more. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. That's the media traditional looking for conflict. But let's look a second time. Who has he lost? He has lost four MPs who none of us could have named back in October of last year when the first one went absent without leave.
00:19:06.340I mean, these people are backbench non-entities.
00:19:11.600I doubt that they have a conservative bone in their body.
00:19:14.660They strike me as the sort of people who just...
00:19:17.100Well, she had one, but all of a sudden she doesn't.
00:19:23.660But she was not like a Matt Jenneru, Red Torgy, pretty liberal-ish.
00:21:22.000in your time in Ottawa have you been to1.00
00:21:24.340storm away yeah nice nice place maybe four years living there it's not too bad because he pretty
00:21:32.600much has to quit he wouldn't quit just i'm done with the job i'm out here he wouldn't quit for
00:21:36.300that reason um look i i'm not in the camp trying you know crying but you know i i think the
00:21:44.880questions are fair now four is a lot you know cory you'll remember um danielle smith when she
00:21:51.300was the wild rose leader lost two um well technically the trickle that started leaving
00:21:56.720well there was a joe england thing they were gonna push him but he jumped first yeah so at least it
00:22:00.660was perceived as him leaving but he was he was gonna be pushed um and then carrie toll and ian
00:22:05.920donovan so she had on paper lost three but more or less lost two um that was a big wound to her
00:22:13.420leadership um and then she did after that make it through a leadership review where she won handedly
00:22:19.640And a month after that, the Wild Rose was a heap of ruin.1.00
00:22:23.960The interesting thing to look at with that was how well did grabbing all those floor crossers work for Prentice?1.00
00:22:30.020In the end, not very well, because he was too greedy.1.00
00:22:33.060And if Kearney doesn't play his cards carefully, he could eventually actually start, it's giving him a stronger caucus.
00:22:39.920But in public support, I mean, it might sour more Canadians, some of them.
00:22:44.220I know. Well, we talked about them last bit, but on Polyev now, floor crossers, yeah, you're generally going to lose the least principled people. And that is a reasonable thing for a leader to say, hey, that guy was liberal all along, or that guy, you know, Gladue, she just wanted to bring home pork barrel spending. These are opportunists. They want cabinet spots.1.00
00:23:02.980that's a very reasonable thing for the leader to say from who's kind of the jilted leader to say
00:23:09.240but when the numbers start racking up like this
00:23:13.460even your supporters in caucus are going to start to look around even if they love you like you're
00:23:20.300the guy we want to back you so your own supporters in caucus eventually start to look around say
00:23:26.140this thing's starting to fall apart and he's got his work cut out for him like it's as you said
00:23:32.060he's not on death row yet but he's on watch now we're starting to work towards it if he doesn't
00:23:36.920find a way to revitalize show strength show that there's a future like this is a setback but now
00:23:43.120we're moving forward again something does have to change though whatever it might be and i i think
00:23:49.200it eludes a lot of us but there's a whole lot of you know we're conservative we tend to like them
00:23:53.540but people don't bloody like him and i i like him yeah you know there's aspects that can be improved
00:24:00.640and so on but somehow he's got to endear himself to people and i don't know how he can do it to
00:24:06.220be honest i'm not exactly a social butterfly myself so uh there's a lot of this is i feel
00:24:11.500like he's almost a bystander i'm not sure how much he can actually do about this dave uh a lot
00:24:16.820of the people who have crossed have just been in opposition for a while now expecting every time
00:24:22.320hey we're going to take down trudeau we're going to take down trudeau last time it was we're going
00:24:26.320to form possibly the biggest supermajority
00:24:56.180to MPs, you know, maybe you're otherwise loyal conservatives just say, you've got to be tired
00:25:01.960of sitting over there. Just come over here. It's going to be the parties are better. You get to
00:25:06.840sit on the good side of the house. You're not in the cheap seats anymore. It feels like events,
00:25:11.220to some extent, are just no longer in Polyev's hands, and he is a spectator.
00:25:15.520We've got to keep in mind, though, that things aren't going great in this country at the moment.
00:25:20.400He can have his majority, but he's still got a huge problem with immigration. He's still got a
00:25:25.120huge problem with the economy going in at the toilet, unemployment, and all these real world
00:25:30.660issues, I think, will start to catch up to them. And as you mentioned, Derek, you know, the Tories
00:25:36.180had a 20, 25 point lead going into the last election. So they're trailing now, it seems,
00:25:42.040by about 10 points. So I think the worst thing they could do is panic and try and remove polio.
00:25:48.820He's just got to work harder and come across as more measured, more statesmanlike like he did that speech in Europe and in London and Berlin and keep doing the things he's doing.
00:26:03.940People are still with him. Fundraising was a record $48 million in 2025. Like that's eight months after the election. They're still pulling in the money. So, you know, we'll see what the first quarter results are.
00:26:18.640But at the moment, I think people are with them, too.
00:26:23.840Yeah, but within it, remember, the caucus is a different beast than the members or even the voters.
00:26:30.260The caucus, these are people who are literally away from home, isolated, sitting in an apartment or a hotel, and they're living and breathing this stuff every day.0.95
00:27:08.760The prime minister has all the carrots here.
00:27:11.420The prime minister's job is more difficult in some senses, but it's a lot easier in other senses that he can reward, he can punish a lot easier than the leader of the opposition can.
00:27:19.920And they've lost their boogeyman in Justin Trudeau. Canadians, for whatever reason, have decided to give Mark Carney a lot of grace right now.
00:27:31.620And they're giving him this long extended honeymoon and chance, and he is at least not pissing them off the way that Justin Trudeau did.1.00
00:27:39.440So they've lost their rallying cry every day of this buffoonish idiot on the other side.0.99
00:27:44.840Now it's this quiet banker who at least comes across as an adult, even if he's still pretty far out there.1.00
00:32:19.920And then she's presented with the option of, like, I think there'd probably be a revolt from the independent side if they're not allowed their question.0.60
00:32:28.740But then she has to wear independence a fair bit more if she puts the question on herself.
00:32:34.340Our reporter, Will Vassar, has been in the courtroom for the entire case.
00:32:39.180He thinks, and it's just a guess, while he says the judge is quite scornful of the arguments by the chiefs.
00:32:47.200But you never know which way a judge is going to go.
00:38:33.700Yes, he's got a great opportunity to frame himself as Captain Canada in pulling the NDP.
00:38:40.820But he's acquired a whole bunch of other baggage that still people might say, again, I'll vote against independents in the next referendum.
00:38:49.340But there's no way I'm voting for that guy who wants to chemically castrate children.
00:39:36.020I had, you know, in Quebec, there's a significant number of people who will vote for the PQ, but they don't vote for independence because even if they don't want independence, they like it that the PQ is there as the mean son of a bitch.0.98
00:39:51.160They're going to get they're going to stand up for Quebec. They're the home team. They don't trust the Quebec Liberal Party as a bunch of a bunch of federal cello.0.98
00:39:58.620So, you know, you can vote for the party. You know, it's like you're voting for the bad guy. You want him on your team. He's the tough one.
00:40:06.020so maybe there's some of that too and we're at a part where there's still even the non-fully
00:40:10.340independence-minded people there is a strong sentiment of anti-ottawa going on right now and
00:40:16.020nichey doesn't present himself as a person who's going to stand up to carnage yeah well the mvp is
00:40:21.300just we ottawa can do no wrong and he said well they'll say oh of course ottawa can do wrong uh
00:40:27.380but then they can't like really name anything uh you know so it's very theoretical that ottawa could
00:40:32.180do you know could mess up to them they're just not trusted to not sell out on one person keeping
00:40:37.860yeah and don't forget they've got avi lewis hanging over there yeah he's still coming over
00:40:42.340their heads right umbilical course so yeah that's gonna keep uh and she's popularity down a bit
00:40:49.700okay parting shots day the most underreported story of the week the 2026 ugandan chimpanzee war
00:40:59.860you guys heard of it oh yeah very very interesting story this is a group of 200 chimpanzees
00:41:08.040who have lived together since for decades decades and decades and a few years ago they started to
00:41:14.580separate into two separate tribes uh an eastern and a western so you know there's another ironic
00:41:21.000and now for the last few years they've been in unbridled war as soon as they see each other they
00:41:26.820they're fighting and killing each other dozens of chimpanzees have died a whole bunch of babies
00:41:31.860have died when their mothers have been involved in and fighting but uh even the monkeys can't0.81
00:41:36.660get along so what hope is there for us the epstein goat into the chimpanzees yeah anyways
00:41:42.180i blame the eastern monkeys yeah google ugandan chip fight and it's very interesting stuff
00:41:50.020i'm just offering low-hanging fruit to premier smith here's an easy win that i think should be
00:41:54.340be a no-brainer. The oil prices are through the roof. The government is getting awash in revenue
00:41:59.940from it. Cut the gas taxes. You're losing the narrative on this. You've got the means. You're
00:42:06.460supposed to be conservatives. If you still believe when you're getting $700 million per dollar that
00:42:12.660the energy prices rise on the global market, you still have to ding us 10 cents a liter at the pump.
00:42:18.880This is one of the areas too where it's a good tax to cut. You would know from the Taxpayers
00:42:22.780federation it gives people more stimulus to do things travel spend do other stuff i'm not sure0.98
00:42:28.620why premier smith's really dragging her feet on this one just just cut that darn thing and if you
00:42:33.580see you can't afford it cut some spending then i'd like to hear conservatives i wouldn't just say uh0.97
00:42:38.140you know because carney cut the uh you know carney goes out and he steals you know he steals these
00:42:42.380kind of populist conservative ideas took it from polyev uh gilbo was upset enough when the consumer
00:45:04.600uh i i don't think they'd want to mask on the club i would just love to be at like a band
00:45:11.640like the band council office and and this dude walks into the dress and says sign me up
00:45:18.340uh chief jessica chief jessica i was actually thinking that that should be the new name
00:45:25.380okay so we know more evidence is going to be presented as we big chief jessica add another
00:45:33.820count to our charges when this gets played again at our at our human rights commission
00:45:39.880play this clip add another one uh for uh now slugging the mmiwgs2l gtb qqia plus community
00:45:51.280i want to know who's taking over this show when derek gets thrown in the slammer
00:45:55.540So keep donating to the legal funds, everybody.
00:46:05.200Yeah, thank all of you who have donated to our legal fund.
00:46:09.680Actually, we did raise some money for it.
00:46:12.300And also, a shout out to the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms,
00:46:16.300who has stepped up to provide defense on the first stage of this.
00:46:23.060I got more to say, but we're out of time.
00:46:24.780All right. Corey, Dave, Nigel, thank you. Thank you, John and Josh on production. And all of you for joining us today and who are supporting the work we do. Remember, if you're not a member yet of the Western Standard, you're a cheap bastard in freeloading off of the work of everyone else who is a subscriber. So please don't feel like that. Go to westernstandard.news right now. Click on subscribe. It's just $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited access to all Western Standard content.
00:46:50.980and you'll be supporting the work that we do
00:46:53.120and maybe helping keep me out of human rights jail in BC.