Scott Stinson: Stop it with the loser talk, Conservatives
Members of Parliament are allowed to switch parties, and pretending otherwise just makes you sound weak
By: Scott Stinson
There is a thing that happens in sports sometimes when a coach or a player, after a tough defeat, refuses to accept that they might be at fault.
They blame the officials, or a busy schedule, or a brutal stretch of injuries. Or maybe they go a step further and blame the opponent for competing unfairly.
This is, in most such cases, loser talk.
Which brings us to the federal Conservatives.
The way that Pierre Poilievre and some of his Tory counterparts have responded to the latest adventures of a floor-crossing MP, one that puts a Mark Carney majority very much within reach due to three by-elections next month, has a distinct whiff of such loser behaviour about it.
Poilievre has accused the Prime Minister of “trying to seize” a Parliamentary majority through “dirty backroom deals” and he has also said that such a majority would not be “legitimate” because “Canadians voted against a majority.”
Aside from the fact that the Conservatives were happy to accept floor-crossers when they were in government, including once popping former Liberal MP David Emerson straight into the Stephen Harper cabinet, Poilievre is willfully pretending to not know how our electoral system works. We elect a Member of Parliament, full stop. Everything else that happens after that — whether one party can command the confidence of the House, and the balance of power within it — is not something that Canadians “vote” for. There is no option on the ballot for minority or majority.
It’s perfectly fair to argue that an MP who ditches their party soon after an election has betrayed those who voted for them, but the Parliamentary consequences of those moves, in our Westminster system, are perfectly legitimate. Poilievre knows this. I’m not sure why he is complaining about the implications of by-elections that his party hasn’t even lost yet instead of focusing his time and energy on trying to win them — and preventing the majority at the ballot box(es).
All the complaining about the political maneuvering that the Liberals have done in recent months is reminiscent of the grievances that were aired against another prime minister, 15 years ago. Except in that instance it was Stephen Harper at 24 Sussex and Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal leader, who was doing the complaining.
In the 2011 federal election, Ignatieff and the Liberals — and, to be fair, a considerable chunk of the media — spent a lot of time moaning about Harper’s disrespect of political norms. Harper had been found in contempt of Parliament. He had prorogued it when politically expedient to do so. There had been election-finance charges. There was even anger at Harper’s five-question limit at campaign press events, and further outrage that some of those events were only open to supporters.
All of these things were fodder for what became known as Ignatieff’s “Rise Up” speech, where he basically implored Canadians to give more of a shit about this kind of political minutiae.
Canadians did not give more of a shit. Harper sailed to victory and was handed a comfortable majority in the House of Commons. Ignatieff was humiliated. The Conservative gamble, which was that the stuff that really got political insiders on the panel shows worked up was of very little interest to the average voter, paid off handsomely.
Which is, I think, pretty much the calculus going on inside Team Carney today. Some Tory supporters have been making the argument in recent days that a Liberal majority acquired via MP defections will tear the country asunder, so outraged will we all be by such shenanigans.
Except, all of the floor crossings certainly don’t seem to be outraging any poll respondents. This week brought another series of eye-popping public-opinion surveys that gave Carney’s Liberals wide support, and gave the prime minister a massive advantage over the Conservative leader in personal popularity. That is to say, no one seems particularly fussed by these backroom deals.
Which is the other funny thing about the Tory complaints about the fact that the coming by-elections could secure a Carney majority: honestly, guys, would you rather he call a general election? It seems like, if you spend a lot of time telling anyone who would listen that the Liberals haven’t earned the right to have a Parliamentary majority through a nationwide vote, you are pretty much inviting Carney to ask voters to give him one.
None of this is to say that criticisms of Carney’s first year aren’t valid. He gave a speech in Switzerland that was well-liked, he stands up to Donald Trump but only sparingly, and he’s unwound some Trudeau-era policies while promising a lot of big ideas that he is a very long way from delivering. But being Not Trudeau was enough to win him an election, and almost a majority at that. The Canadian electorate left the side door to a majority open, and he looks ready to stroll right though it.
The Conservatives, no doubt, find this extremely frustrating. But it is legitimate. As Pierre Poilievre would absolutely say if he won the next election and found himself a couple of seats away from a majority.
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So look I say this as someone who should have been a winnable convert to the CPC in 2025 (early 40s dad who hated the Trudeau era of identity politics). I didn’t so much vote for the LPC in 2025 as I voted against the CPC — specifically Poilievre’s support for the Ottawa trucker occupation, and his refusal to, frankly, be angry enough at US threats to our sovereignty and to show some backbone even at economic cost to us.
That said: Carney has been in for a year now and nothing has moved on permitting. And Poilievre is sounding a lot more reasonable. The trucker convoy memory is receding into the past, PP on Rogan refused to say anything against Canada on foreign soil, etc.
I think the issue now is that it’s hard for the CPC to differentiate themselves. On all the cultural stuff — support for the military, backing off on youth gender transitions, backing off on attacking oil and gas as a moral issue — Carney is already squarely in 90s Liberal / Progressive Conservative territory.
How best for CPC to differentiate themselves? The main one for me is on resource project permitting. It’s Carney’s main weakness. Nothing is yet moving in Canada! But: I think PP’s people know well that it’s a high-voltage wire because of the First Nations issue. That’s why they aren’t saying any specifics and why Canadians are letting Carney get away with basically zero progress on permitting.
There is one inconvenient fact that this article omits: never has an outright majority be won through floor crossings and it would behoove us to investigate what those floor crossers were promised for them to switch, because those backroom deals stink to high heaven.
If they have nothing to hide, the liberals should welcome these investigations.
I think we should be outright worried about his implementation of globalist policies as outline in his own book: return of the carbon tax, no more pipelines, more liberticide laws, etc.