Today's News: Yes, there's going to be a vote of non-confidence ... against Poilievre

I loved this artwork from Dean Blundell. 

Ostensibly, the d'Entremont floor crossing was about Carney's budget, but in reality it will be Poilievre's leadership that is the most affected.

That time a Canadian Prime Minister turned a budget vote into a non-confidence vote in the Leader of the Opposition. Patterns repeat. Only the players change. The D'Entremont defection wasn't some random event — it was scheduled. The timing lined up perfectly with the release of the budget. One simple act of choreography and suddenly the "government on the brink" story became the "Opposition in disarray" story. An incredible reversal of narrative that came only weeks after the CPC commanded media attention following Poilievre's RCMP fiasco. The Conservatives were already leaking rumours of dissent before the budget was even tabled. Now they're stuck watching their own discipline crack in real time. Meanwhile, the Liberals aren't sweating it. Elizabeth May will back the budget — she's not looking for an election, and the budget policy math is solid. The rest is just arithmetic: one defection, one abstention, one flu case on the Conservative or NDP benches, and the budget holds. And of course the quiet part nobody wants to say out loud: nobody's got money to campaign right now. Not the NDP. Not the CPC. And the Greens? Not even close — and that says nothing about the Canadian public's patience for a Christmas election called not six months from the last. Besides, the ridings are starting to feel what government spending actually looks like and, given the uncertainty of the times, they want it to keep coming. So Carney flipped the script. He turned a confidence vote on the government into a confidence test for Pierre Poilievre himself. It's no longer "Can the Liberals survive?" It's "Can Poilievre keep his caucus from imploding before the budget passes?"

- Northern Variables

Read on Substack

"I crossed the floor because I wanted to build Canada, not knock it down." - Chris d’Entremont, MP. ❤️🍁🇨🇦TEAM CANADA FOREVER🇨🇦🍁❤️ ❤️🍁🇨🇦VIVE LE CANADA 🇨🇦🍁

— 🍁🇨🇦Team Canada Forever🇨🇦🍁 (@teamcanadaforever.bsky.social) November 6, 2025 at 12:35 AM

I don't normally have much time for floor crossers but I have a lot of respect for MP Chris d'Entremont. He was one of the few non-toxic members of Poilievre's Conservatives. He was by far the best speaker in last session's toxic parliament. Good for you Chris. www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

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— Charlie Angus (@charlieangus104.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 4:17 PM

Evan Scrimshaw / Scrimshaw Unscripted 

The d’Entremont Crossing A Crisis For Conservatives
On Poilievre’s Crumbling Leadership
...The Conservative Party is prepared to follow Pierre Poilievre to the edge of the earth, even if it means falling off. d’Entremont isn’t. And you have to wonder if he’s really the only one scared.
...at the end of the day, this is about Poilievre. He has benefitted for so long from the fact that there isn’t a viable alternative in the Conservative Party that we’ve conflated him being good at this with being better than the (political) corpse of Jean Charest. That’s not the same thing, and it’s starting to become apparent because the Liberals have gotten their heads out of their asses.
For all the (I think legitimate) concerns with the Carney operation’s rocky start, the budget was an unqualified success from a comms perspective - repackaging old Trudeau commitments with new money to give progressives big dollar figures they can be happy about on infrastructure and housing, a big business-friendly suite of policies on investment that should bring shitloads of European manufacturing here, and a deficit and job cut numbers under the rumoured highs. Oh, and they gave Don Davies and Vancouver Liberals a local win with the Filipino community centre, which is deserved in a vacuum but especially so given April’s tragedy. Putting that in the budget, as opposed to being a press release stemming from some line item in the budget in 4 months, is the kind of astute work I’ve been begging for.
Poilievre’s Conservatives, on the other hand, sound like nothing has happened ....acting like this is Just Another Liberal Budget and not a crisis caused by Trump is laughably out of touch with both reality and how voters perceive reality. In that context, is it shocking that Conservative MPs would similarly be disillusioned?
... Poilievre is a candidate of a past era. He was the right man for the Biden-Trudeau years, because he was made to ride discontent and disillusionment from an electorate that had tuned out the incumbents. But he’s not a candidate that can win when the electorate is paying attention to both sides.
Poilievre’s problem isn’t that the voters are ill-informed or not paying attention, it’s that they are informed. The country doesn’t blame Carney because plainly it’s not his fault, and they get that. Being mad about it isn’t going to change it, but Poilievre refuses to do anything about his problem because that would require the CPC to affirmatively decide what would actually solve problems, beyond promising pipelines everywhere that might spur growth in 5 or 7 years.
It’s not surprising that Conservatives are starting to wonder about Poilievre. He’s standing on the edge of the earth. Chris d’Entremont decided he didn’t want to follow him off of it. The survival of Poilievre’s leadership requires nobody else to notice that’s where Poilievre is taking them.

Nova Scotia MP Chris d'Entremont said Wednesday he left the Conservative caucus because he didn't feel represented in leader Pierre Poilievre's party anymore and bristled at his "negative" approach to politics. D'Entremont said Canada is facing challenges and he felt it was better to be part of the solution to some of those troubles as a member of the government caucus "and not continue to be negative." https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/chris-dentremont-liberals-poilievre-9.6967559

- Glen Lancaster 🇨🇦

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Several seat Liberals didn’t get was due to vote split. In case of MP d’Entremont, he won by a couple hundred in the riding, where NDP had about 1500 votes. Even Greens had more votes than difference. The riding is not MAGA conservative. There are many such seats.

— Mary 🇨🇦 (@marythemuser.bsky.social) November 5, 2025 at 7:02 PM

This Raj piece is well observed!
Althia Raj / Toronto Star

Mark Carney’s budget isn’t built to win an election — and that reveals a lot about Carney himself
....Budget 2025 reveals a lot about Carney himself.

He is unafraid of changing his mind and breaking promises, even if he made those pledges mere months ago (see the Liberals’ election platform.)
He’s a technocrat, leading as if he has a majority government, rather than as a prime minister whose government risks facing the electorate without some opposition support.
He wants to govern unencumbered by partisan considerations and the demands of retail politics.
The 2025 budget isn’t the kind of document designed to win an election.
You don’t head into a campaign where your opposition has branded you an elite by campaigning on possibly privatizing Canadian airports, or scrapping the luxury tax on rich people’s jets and yachts.
You don’t head into an election without “costly political gimmicks,” as former finance minister Chrystia Freeland described popular vote-driving measures — tax breaks and direct cheques — that cost the treasury but offer no growth. (Here, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has refined the art, while Harper’s GST cuts and boutique tax credit led the way.)
It’s not that Carney is afraid of spending — he’s spending a lot, more than $140 billion over five years. But he isn’t spending it by making concessions to voters, or to opposition parties.
There are no new measures in this budget to ease immediate affordability challenges, no new tax cuts (though Canadians received one this summer) nor further drugs covered under the federal government’s pharma care plan. Some bank fees may come down, and Carney’s efforts to increase competition may lower cellphone bills, but those impacts, like many of the budget’s “investments,” won’t be felt for a while.
Carney’s focus is instead on fixing Canada’s problem, its anemic economic growth, its productivity gap, by leveraging public money to help create opportunities in key sectors — infrastructure, housing, critical minerals, AI, defence, international trade — spurring more private-sector investment, creating jobs, making Canadians wealthier.
It’s the kind of budget that makes policy nerds happy — and hopeful that the government can execute on its plans.
It is a budget with a vision — though its plans aren’t fully fleshed out...

Listen, it is the sound of poiLIEvre NOT TALKING Merci M. D’Entremont 🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐🤐

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— Pouhlamouh (@dequesse.bsky.social) November 5, 2025 at 8:48 AM

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