Have you been watching Poilievre and his caucus loyalists as they huff and puff and fling insults far and wide?
I thought this was the gang who were trying to convince Canadians to give them the keys to the Prime Minister office someday soon. But if this is how they deal with a crisis, well ..... this week hasn't been a good look for them.
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...“Quite honestly, a lot of times I felt it was part of a frat house rather than a serious political party,” d’Entremont said. “It was about who was friends with who,” he said, rattling off the ways in which the Poilievre team went for the low road. “How could you end up beating up on someone else?”
That drew a swift response from the Conservative office in question, which, sorry, kind of proved d’Entremont’s point.
“Chris d’Entremont, who established himself a liar after wilfully deceiving his voters, friends and colleagues because he was upset he didn’t get his coveted deputy speaker role, is now spinning more lies after crossing the floor. He will fit in perfectly in the Liberal caucus,” said the statement, attributed only to a spokesman for the opposition leader’s office.
There was lots more in that interview about what would push a Conservative MP to leave the fold, but this one glimpse doesn’t do anything to make political life look attractive to outsiders. Sure, it’s often more sport than seriousness, especially in question period, but it’s also a workplace, and this is the picture of a toxic one.
Now, it should be said that no party holds a monopoly on virtue in this regard. Heckling and insults fly both ways in the Commons. But d’Entremont was describing the enthusiasm with which his old team has embraced the jugular. Any casual look at the social media feeds of Poilievre’s most ardent minions knows well what he is describing....
Robin Urback in the Globe and Mail:
...Are the Conservatives OK? Do they need a Snickers bar? A hug?
Days after Mr. d’Entremont crossed the floor, Alberta MP Matt Jeneroux, who was rumoured to be crossing the floor as well, announced his resignation from Parliament. His statement opened with a plea to leave his family alone, which is the type of thing someone leaving the Mafia might say, instead of someone leaving a political party. Maybe Mr. Jeneroux is trembling out of excitement for his post-political life? We’ll never know. The Conservatives released their own statement about Mr. Jeneroux’s resignation, claiming that it was “always his intention to leave politics to spend more time with his family.” If the Conservatives had paused for a breath before releasing that statement, they might have realized that claiming that one of their candidates always planned to leave politics six months after an election isn’t a clever form of damage control.
The Conservatives can be angry and smart about their shrinking caucus or they can just be angry. They can knock down doors and brand their former colleague a “liar,” feeding into the worst perceptions that some Canadians have about the party, or they can try to show up as adults. Instead of “Check out this Brutus!” the Conservatives might have tried “We are disappointed Mr. d’Entremont has decided to join the party he recently said was ignoring the cost-of-living concerns of regular Canadians. While Mr. d’Entremont and his new colleagues pile on record debt, the Conservatives remain focused on making life more affordable for the Canadians forced to pay for that debt.” They can try to form unlikely but strategic partnerships with MPs across the aisle (for example, with B.C. NDP MP Gord Johns, whose riding has a sizable Conservative-voting population) and they can demonstrate a relentless focus on the issues, not just their issues.
Perhaps that starts with a snack and a good night’s sleep.
Compare the CPC reaction to losing d'Entremont with Trudeau's reaction in 2018:
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Here's how Canada is reacting to Poilievre now:
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One Canadian "crossing the floor" story that has always stuck with me is how Belinda Stronach was treated by the press when she did it. I really remember an editorial cartoon basically accusing her of being a prostitute for the Liberals.
— Joanna L. Pearce, Ph.D. (@jlphistory.bsky.social) November 10, 2025 at 11:16 PM
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Mark Carney’s favourability holds steady at +12 net, while Pierre Poilievre’s has fallen to -7, his lowest in over a year. The floor crossing may have bruised Poilievre’s image more than it boosted Carney’s. Read more: abacusdata.ca/abacus-data...
— David Coletto (@davidcoletto.bsky.social) November 10, 2025 at 4:00 PM
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If we can’t get Poilievre to resign, maybe a conservative could just cross the floor every once in a while to shut him the fuck up for a few days?
— 🇨🇦MapleZero (@maplezero.bsky.social) November 11, 2025 at 7:05 PM
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Its worth remembering that voters have "crossed" too, for strategic purpose:
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6 comments:
Robin Urback's comments are solid evidence that she's happy to do the Conservatives' work for them.
It's laughable to see pundits reaching the conclusion that "Gee, the Conservatives sure are a toxic bunch!" News flash: THEY'VE BEEN THIS WAY FOR YEARS. Yet the chattering class has laboured to portray the Cons as a viable governing party, simply out of disdain for the Liberals. "Me hate Justin. Harper/Scheer/O'Toole/Poilievre good."
The Cons don't want to govern. They want to punch down on people they don't like.
Yes, agreed! Reading these pieces it was like, they can't believe how bad the Cons are at this "crisis" business, and that's a lesson worth learning about the Cons.
Cathy, you live in Saskatchewan so you must remember this. Ten years ago I helped one of my daughter move across country and while travelling on the TCH East of Regina we came across a massive vanity sign announcing we were in the riding of Andrew Sheer, speaker of the house. We didn't see anything like it anywhere else on the journey from Metro Vancouver to St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador. It left the impression with me that Mr. Sheer was nothing more than a vain, immature little man and it looks judging by the reports of his meeting with d'Entremont nothing has changed. Both he and PP come across as forever adolescents, the Beavis and Butthead of Canadian politics.
mr perfect
Not their finest hour . . . Refresh my memory, have the Cons had any fine hours in recent years?
Well, there was that time from about a year to two months before the last election when the Cons were riding high in polls with a 20+ lead and seemed certain to form a majority government...
Well, true enough, but that wasn't because of anything they actually did. Pierre's rhetoric made no more sense then than it does now, and he was just as much of a vicious unappealing weasel then as now. All they did was borrow Trumpism and let the papers pretend they were credible, which was enough as long as the Trudeau government was pretty hapless and everyone was sick of the Liberals.
Not sure it counts as a "this was their finest hour" if you're just riding high because the alternative has defeated itself.
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