The 2025 Canadian Election – Part Deux

I will be writing more about more general issues regarding voter turnout and why people vote or don’t, hopefully all illustrated with what happened in Canda’s recent election. Here I just want to note some consequences of this recent vote which seem both interesting and important. This post was prompted by a report in the Globe today that the Liberals are trying to find ‘disgruntled’ Conservative MPs to ‘poach’, in an attempt to get to a majority in Parliament.

I first note a report that says the Liberal seat count is now back down to 168 from 169, as a Quebec riding originally said to be won narrowly by the Liberals is for the moment a Bloc riding. According to the Globe, it had been listed as a 35-vote Liberal win but this has been updated to a 44-vote Bloc win. However, because of the narrow margin of victory, the riding results will go to a recount, so stay tuned, folks. Do the Liberals need another three or four votes?

Back to the Liberal ‘poaching’, the Liberals do not seem to be denying that they are doing this, but it leaves me to wonder what this would mean. So far as I know, an MP voted in as a Conservative can ‘cross the floor’ and sit with the Liberal caucus. Belinda Stronach famously did this back in 2005, an event fraught with romantic overtones, as I recall. The usual reason cited for making this floor-crossing a bad idea for a sitting MP is that the constituents who originally elected them will be upset and throw them out of office at the first opportunity. However, Stronach was re-elected as a Conservative from the same riding she had won as a Liberal in the first election after her floor-crossing. No harm, no foul, presumably, in that case.

Alternatively, could a Conservative MP simply agree to support the Liberals in any vote of confidence, without crossing the floor? I doubt the Conservatives would allow that, and their Leader would likely expel them from their own caucus, so they may as well ‘cross’.

Anyway, to the extent that this sort of search for ‘disgruntled’ MPs is truly happening (and all the Globe seems to know is that Liberal spokespersons are not denying it), it is at least consistent with my suggestion that the Liberals and Carney are going to be uncomfortable entering into an alliance with either the Bloc or the rump of the NDP. Better to rely on a handful of Conservatives (or NDP?) who have indicated in some way that they are willing to support you. Attracting Conservatives looks good, consorting with The Party From Nowhere or The Party of Quebecois Angst, not so much.

Are there really disgruntled Conservative MPs? I have no idea, none of them are answering my calls, but it is not hard to imagine that some of them are at least unhappy with the current Conservative Party Leader and his advisors, given that they lost a 20+ percentage point lead in the polls over three months.

This all leads to the other political drama slowly developing after the election. Poilievre finds himself in the position of being The Leader of the Conservative Party, and the Conservative Party, by virtue of its 144 seats in Parliament, is His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, but Poilievre’s loss of his seat means he cannot be The Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. You gotta be in Parliament to hold that position in Parliament, and – maybe – to live in the residence provided for the person who holds that position. Messy for Poilievre and the Conservatives, at least for now.

The Conservative Caucus in Parliament will meet next week to decide who will fill that official parliamentary role when Parliament resumes, and it certainly cannot be Poilievre until and unless he gets elected to Parliament. This, in turn, will require that at some point the holder of a safe Conservative seat step aside, and resign their seat, so PP can run in a by-election. Any volunteers?

Of more potential distress to Mr. Poilievre, the signature of 20% of his caucus members (so, 29 or so) would then trigger a review of his Leadership. I don’t know exactly what that entails, and most of what I have read about the current federal Conservative party suggests that Poilievre has maintained tight control over it, so it likely won’t happen, and won’t be a problem for Poilievre if it does.

It is most likely then, I suppose, that there will be no drama, no leadership review, some good Conservative soldier will resign from his ‘safe’ seat in return for some unknown goodies, so as to allow Poilievre to win it in a byelection, and Parliament will chug along in its usual (usually dysfunctional) way. That’s how things go generally in 21^st century Canadian politics. Look how many months of tanking polling numbers it took – along with the resignation of the Minister of Finance – before Trudeau actually felt the need to walk out into the winter snow.

That all said, perhaps this is a good place to insert Al’s Very Excellent Canadian Political Fantasy.

Imagine for a moment or two that Carney called up Poilievre and said:

‘Lets have a meeting, just you, me, maybe three or four of our key MPs, and discuss forming a Government of National Unity. We can talk about putting some of your Conservative MPs in Cabinet, and work out a set of National Priorities that both of our caucuses can live with, if not universally love. These are exceptional times, and we who lead the Parties that were supported by more than 80% of all voters need to do something exceptional for the good of Canada and its people.”

Don’t really see Carney making that call (he holds most of the cards now, after all), don’t see Poilievre responding favourably if he did, don’t see that meeting going well if it were to happen. Old habits of thinking die hard.

But an old guy can dream, eh? Even an old cynic like me.