Pierre Poilievre just watched a fifth MP walk out of his caucus, and his response was to thank the guy. Mark Carney appointed Conservative MP Richard Martel — a sitting member of Poilievre’s own team — to the Senate this week, and Martel took the red chair and left. Four Conservatives before him crossed the floor straight to the Liberals; Martel just got the seat handed to him by the Liberal prime minister instead. Poilievre reportedly found out minutes before it went public. Then he put out a statement wishing Martel well, hoping he’d “continue the fight for affordability, growing paycheques, and safe streets in the Upper Chamber.” Your opponent poached a player off your bench and you clapped.
Look at what Carney is actually doing here, because it’s not subtle and it doesn’t need to be. He scrapped the non-partisan pretense for Senate seats the same week and dropped his own principal secretary, Tom Pitfield, into the chamber too, so nobody’s confused about what those appointments are for anymore. He built his majority out of by-elections and floor-crossings in the first place, and he keeps peeling Conservatives off the board one at a time while Poilievre gives the same speech about paycheques to a bench that’s quietly emptying behind him. Nik Nanos, who counts these things for a living, said Poilievre got “out-communicated.” That’s the gentle version of “taken apart without landing a punch back.”
Here’s the part worth sitting with. Poilievre pulled 87 percent at his own leadership review in January and ran a whole “Canada is broken” tour on pure fury, and it turns out that act was only ever built for opposition — it’s easy to be the angriest man in the room when the job is to complain and nothing else. Carney just does things, quietly, and every week Poilievre’s counter is another press release and another empty chair. You can’t rage your way out of being outmaneuvered. The man keeps promising to fight for the little guy and he can’t hold onto the guys sitting next to him. Watch the chairs, not the speeches.