Canadian Conservative infighting goes public

Summary

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Front Burner – "Canadian Conservative Infighting Goes Public"

Host: Jayme Poisson (CBC)
Guest: Nick Taylor-Vasey, Ottawa bureau chief, Politico Canada
Date: July 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the recent public infighting within Canada’s Conservative movement, unraveling how personal grievances, factional loyalty, and social media dynamics are destabilizing party unity. Host Jayme Poisson welcomes Politico Canada’s Nick Taylor-Vasey to unpack the origins and implications of this rift. The conversation ranges from leadership rivalries to the role of influencers, and examines what this fractiousness means for the party’s future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How It Started: Polievre’s Stampede Speech and a Not-so-Veiled Dig

• Pierre Poilievre, in his Calgary Stampede keynote, lauded Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s BC Conservative leadership win, then took a subtle jab at her opponent as being aligned with "Liberal lobbyists" ([01:39]).
• Nick Taylor-Vasey: The "liberal lobbyist" jab was clearly aimed (to insiders) at Cory Ténèck, Doug Ford's campaign manager and longtime Conservative operative ([02:55]).
• Poilievre is known for branding Conservatives he disfavors as "Liberals," a tactic he’s used previously against Jean Charest and now against Cory Ténèck.

2. Personal Beef: Poilievre vs. Cory Ténèck

• Ténèck, on the "Curse of Politics" podcast, has been sharply critical of Poilievre, calling the 2024 campaign “campaign malpractice at the highest level” ([04:35]) and a “disaster” ([04:50]).
• After Poilievre’s Stampede remarks, Ténèck doubled down, questioning Poilievre’s grip on reality:

  “I think somebody needs to do a wellness check on Pierre Poilievre. I think he’s showing some signs of some sort of rupture from reality or mental breakdown. I don’t know.” — Cory Ténèck, [05:46]

• Ténèck also called Poilievre basically unemployable outside politics ([06:01]).

3. Ripple Effects: Broadening of the Feud

• Caroline Elliott, the runner-up in the BC Conservative race, posted a social media video directly addressing Poilievre:

  “Hi Pierre, Caroline Elliott here… I voted Conservative my entire life. I voted for you in your own CPC leadership race… so your MPs and now you personally celebrating my defeat… is disappointing. The race is over and it's time to unite, not divide.” — Caroline Elliott, [07:39], [08:15]

• Her main plea: “let’s stop fighting… Why don’t we focus on beating Liberals?” ([08:11]).

4. Deeper Roots: Not About Policy, But Personality

• Poisson and Taylor-Vasey note that the disputes aren’t about policy differences—both sides are “true blue” Conservatives ([09:47]). What divides them is “cliques and preferred leaders,” fueled by longstanding grudges and allegiances.
• Nick Taylor-Vasey:

  "What divides these people is just cliques and preferred leaders... It has threatened at times to swallow them whole over the years." — [09:47]

5. Conservative Influencers: Fueling the Fire

• Increasingly, “conservative influencers” have moved from online relevance into real-world party events, swelling the ranks at leadership reviews and serving as cheerleaders for attack-dog politics ([13:32]).
• The influencers are characterized as “the most interested in a Conservative Party that loves to attack Liberals” ([15:24]), often less engaged with policy and more focused on opposition for its own sake.
• Taylor-Vasey doubts how much sway they have on actual campaigns or policy but notes their narrative fuels internal division.

6. Impact on Caucus Morale and Discipline

• Conservative MPs are in “summer mode,” glad to be away from Ottawa’s political grind ([18:30]).
• Morale is low:

  “The morale is in the absolute chitter.” — Unnamed Conservative MP quoted by Hill Times, [19:34]

• Poilievre maintains a mostly solid hold on caucus leadership but controls messaging less strictly than in previous years ([21:46]).
• Example: MP Jamil Giovanni’s inflammatory, off-message comments about “liberal degeneracy” at Toronto Pride ([21:12]) weren't directed by Poilievre’s office, showing a loosening of top-down discipline.

7. Where Does It Go From Here?

• Calls from senior Conservative strategists like Dan Robertson urge the party to “grow up” and take disputes offline ([23:18]).
• Taylor-Vasey: Party conventions, barbecues, and private gatherings have failed to heal these rifts and there’s no clear forum where fences might be mended before Parliament resumes ([23:52]).
• Ultimately, leadership sets the tone:

  “The leader of the party sets the tone… if Pierre Poilievre didn’t want to inflame a fight with a Doug Ford advisor… he wouldn’t have to.” — Nick Taylor-Vasey, paraphrasing Dan Robertson, [25:29]

• Poilievre can swing between statesmanship and provocateur; his choices will determine whether infighting dissipates or worsens.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Cory Ténèck:

  “Blowing a 25 point lead and being like 10 points down is campaign malpractice at the highest level.” ([04:35]) “This campaign is going to be studied for decades as the biggest disaster.” ([04:50])

• Caroline Elliott:

  “The race is over and it's time to unite, not divide.” ([08:15])

• Ben Woodfinden (via substack):

  “We now assign ideological identity by association and vibe rather than conviction, and a person can be read out of the movement without a single one of their actual beliefs ever being examined.” ([12:11])

• Hill Times Conservative MP:

  “The morale is in the absolute chitter.” ([19:34])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:39] – Poilievre’s keynote at Stampede and initial spark of feud
• [02:55] – Explanation of the "liberal lobbyists" line and targeting Cory Ténèck
• [04:35] – Highlights of Ténèck’s criticism of Poilievre’s campaign
• [05:46] – Ténèck’s wellness check jab
• [07:39] – Caroline Elliott’s video appeal for unity
• [09:47] – Analysis: Infighting not about policy, but personalities and cliques
• [13:32] – Role of conservative influencers and their growing real-world presence
• [15:24] – The influencer tendency to prefer opposition rather than policy
• [18:30] – Conservative caucus “summer mode” and morale
• [19:34] – Hill Times quote: “Morale is in the absolute chitter.”
• [21:12] – Example of off-message caucus comments: Jamil Giovanni
• [23:18] – Dan Robertson’s “grow up” message
• [25:29] – The leader’s role in shaping party tone and resolving infighting

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Tone and Takeaways

The revelations and barbs flying between Conservative insiders reveal a party caught more in personal animosity and power plays than in substantive policy or outward electoral focus. Both host and guest maintain a conversational, slightly wry tone, observing that these feuds undercut the party’s chances, even as the Liberals remain electorally strong. The episode leaves listeners with the sense that unless Poilievre actively chooses a tone of unity, the Conservative movement’s factionalism—and its public airing—will only continue.

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Transcript

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[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

This is a CBC podcast.

[Jamie Poisson]

Hey, everybody, it's Jamie. So it's no secret that there are factions in the conservative movement in Canada and that not everyone gets along. But over the last couple of weeks, conservative infighting has been spilling out into the public with barbs in speeches, on podcasts, in the pages of newspapers, and of course, on social media. So today on Front Burner, I'm talking to Nick Taylor Vasey. He's the Ottawa bureau chief with Politico Canada, and he's here to break down what all of this sniping is about and what it says about the state that the party's in right now. Nick, it's great to have you on frontbrner. Thanks so much for coming on.

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Thank you so much for having me. It's really cool to be here.

[Jamie Poisson]

So let's start with the latest flurry of infighting. What kicked this all off?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Well, I was in the room in Calgary at Stampede when Pierre Poliev, in a keynote speech that covered a lot of ground, a lot of it familiar in there, he snuck in this line about the B.C. conservative race, which I think was meant at the beginning of the line to just pump up Carolyn Findley, the winner of that race, the new BC Conservative leader who was in the room, the future premier of British Columbia, Carolyn Finley. Way to go. Crash off a big win against liberal lobbyists from out East. We've got our former leader. But not long after, I started getting texts from people who noted the other end of that line, that thing about those liberal lobbyists. And so that set it off.

[Jamie Poisson]

I just want to slow down a tiny bit and translate it.

[Unidentified Conservative Commentator]

Yeah.

[Jamie Poisson]

For some people who might be a bit confused. Right. Because as you've just said, Kerry Lynn Finley is this former Conservative MP from B.C. who recently won this tight race to become leader of the B.C. conservative Party. And this was a leadership race that she won against other conservatives, not a general election. So why is Poliev saying that she beat liberal lobbyists?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Well, that was a veiled reference. Not veiled to anybody who's following all the gossip in Conservative circles these days. But to the uninitiated, that was a veiled reference to Cory Ten Eyck, who has won three straight campaigns in Ontario. He has been Doug Ford's campaign manager very successfully. And there was bad blood between Corey Ten Eyck, who was very much a Conservative, and. And Pierre Poliev. They come from the same place. Like Cory Tenuk was a director of communications to Stephen Harper in Ottawa at the same time that Pierre Poliev was a rising Conservative in Ottawa, a member of Parliament who eventually entered Stephen Harper's cabinet. I mean, these are two Conservatives and Pierre Poliev, just anytime he doesn't like a Conservative, he seems to freely brand them a liberal. He did that to Jean Charet, his opponent during the leadership race in 2022. Now, Mr. Charay learned about the TR tomboy on CBC, like other liberals, and he misrepresented them. He's done it along the way to the present day. And Corey Tenek is the most recent, is most recently on the receiving end of that.

[Jamie Poisson]

And just tell me a little bit more about why Poliev doesn't like Corey. Tonight on this beef between Corey and. And Ontario Progressive Conservative Doug Ford and just kind of the origin story of that.

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Well, Poliev doesn't like Cory Tenek because I don't think Cory Tenek very much likes Pierre Poliev. In the last federal campaign, Corey was on the Curse of Politics, a podcast that he's still on and still voicey on, and he just went after the Polly of national campaign.

[Unidentified Conservative Commentator]

We talk sometimes about campaign malpractice. Blowing a 25 point lead and being like 10 points down is campaign malpractice at the highest level.

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

He was arguably the biggest critic of that campaign.

[Unidentified Conservative Commentator]

This campaign is going to be studied for decades as the biggest disaster.

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

And so that set off this feud. And they have a lot of friends in common. Like the conservative movement as much as it's fractured, it's also full of people who get along really well and who've worked together over and over again over the years. And so it's produced this kind of awkward situation where you have people who are friends, probably with both, also people who are friends with neither, who disagree about exactly what the Conservatives should do next to remain united. And it all happens during the summer when everybody's working the barbecue circuit. Nobody really wants to talk about politics anyway. So awkward is the way I would describe it, or at least that's one of many adjectives we could use.

[Jamie Poisson]

And you mentioned all those comments that Corey made on the Politics podcast, Curse of Politics during the election. He actually went on that same podcast last week I think. Right?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Yeah.

[Jamie Poisson]

After Pollyv's comments at the stampede and he just went off.

[Unidentified Conservative Commentator]

I think somebody needs to do a wellness check on on Pierre Poliev. I think he's showing some signs of some sort of rupture from reality or mental breakdown. I don't know.

[Jamie Poisson]

Basically call Polly unemployable.

[Unidentified Conservative Commentator]

At the end of the day you got to bear in mind that. Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Poliev is completely unemployable. He could work at McDonald's or Tim Hortons or all kinds of places, but he is impossible to employ in an equivalent type position with the level of stature and prestige and compensation, both monetary and non monetary that he has currently. And I think his entire ego and self images wrapped up and frozen in time in 2024 where it looked like he was going to be Prime Minister.

[Jamie Poisson]

It was really kind of nasty stuff getting aired amongst people who are ostensibly, as you pointed out, supposed to be on the same side. And there will be a new episode of Curse of Politics out by the time this episode airs. So I'm guessing he might have more to say. I want to talk to you about a few other things that have been said these last few weeks because this is all rippled out beyond some personal animus between these two guys. In making his dig at tonight, Poliev was also kind of making a dig at the woman tonight was working for in bc, Caroline Elliott, a young woman who was running to be the leader of the BC Conservatives but lost just by 60 votes. And so then she puts out this video on social media addressing Polly directly.

[Caroline Elliott]

Hi Pierre, Caroline Elliott here, where she's

[Jamie Poisson]

basically like, whoa, whoa, I'm a fan. I've tried to help you.

[Caroline Elliott]

I voted Conservative my entire life. I voted for you in your own CPC leadership race. My family and friends donate to you at my encouragement. I've attended events and knocked on doors for you, spoken up for you on social media and in my columns that you've actually posted to your own social media. I was the only candidate to publicly endorse you ahead of your leadership review vote earlier this year.

[Jamie Poisson]

And just what is her big message in this video?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Her big message is let's stop fighting, please, for the love of God.

[Caroline Elliott]

So your MPs and now you personally celebrating my defeat in the BC Conservative leadership race is disappointing. The race is over and it's time to unite, not divide.

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Why don't we focus on beating liberals. And she's not alone in saying that. A lot of conservative commentators these days are saying, you know what liberals are really good at doing? They're really good at winning. That might mean they overhaul their platforms completely in service to finding a way to convince enough voters that they deserve power. But the liberals since the dawn of confederation have been very good at that. Conservatives, not so much when you look at the electoral record. So they're saying, why on earth are we disagreeing with each other with such personal animus when, when you look at the polls, we're down. The liberals are taking our ideas, they're governing on them. Mark Carney is convincing enough soft conservatives that he's kind of conservative. He's convincing all the liberal voters he's just as liberal as they need him to be. Through all of this. Liberals are continuing this kind of year plus long honeymoon. Meanwhile, it's just these personal battles on the conservative side. So Carolyn Elliott is one voice out in B.C. saying, what the heck are we doing? Let's focus on the, on the common enemy here, not on these disputes that are tearing us apart.

[Caroline Elliott]

I'll keep fighting every day to bring people together for the future of my province and our country. I just hope you decide to do that too.

[Jamie Poisson]

Elliot and Polia, their politics, they don't seem very different. Is that, is that fair for me to say?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

These aren't a mixture of Red Tories and hard social conservatives. These are kind of similarly solidly true blue conservatives on the issues. They disagree with liberals and New Democrats about most things and they agree amongst themselves about most things, like you say when it comes to policy. But the persistent problem for the conservative movement in Canada is that what divides these people is just cliques and preferred leaders of various factions of the movement that I guess are just fighting about who's best to send the message. But like any movement, like any social group, there's friction and there's infighting just because some people don't like each other. And that for some reason with conservatives more than liberals, it just burbles up. And it has threatened at times to swallow them whole over the years. And right now, it's what's really driving this persistent summertime argument in comment pages and blogs. And I guess Twitter.

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[Jamie Poisson]

You mentioned that Elliot and Pollyv share, you know, friends in the movement. I'm thinking of Bed Woodfinden, right, who worked on Elliot's campaign and was also a former director of communications for Poliev. And so he put out a tweet where he said, I'm more depressed about the state of conservative politics in Canada right now than I've ever been. Pretty grim stuff to to be saying publicly. After that tweet got a lot of conservatives talking, he followed up with this piece and without diminishment, this is like a relatively new conservative substack. And the piece is called Are you angry enough? And I just want to quote this piece here because I found it quite interesting and also I think it's probably another example of the point that you were making earlier. He writes, we now assign ideological identity by association and vibe rather than conviction, and a person can be read out of the movement without a single one of their actual beliefs ever being examined. There is also a big contingent of conservative influencers in this country, and I just am curious to hear what role you think that that they're playing in this infighting.

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Right?

[Jamie Poisson]

Because up until now we've really been talking about kind of insiders in the Conservative party.

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

I think it would be really easy to dismiss influencers online as having influence. Only online. It's very clear that there is spillover into the real world. Like at Pierre Poliev's leadership review in Calgary earlier this year, there was a big party at a bar in southwestern Calgary put on by a whole bunch of influencers. This is going to be the biggest conservative influencer get together for free for free in our history. There's so many more people showing up. You guys have no idea. We have a lot of members of Parliament showing up. We have some surprises and there was A big group, they attracted to that place to celebrate what it is to be like a hard right. I won't say far right, although maybe that's from. Applies in some cases. But just like really, truly not a liberal online. Celebrating each other was something that happened offline. So it's not just a Twitter thing. These people are in every room that matters. They were all over that leadership convention there in Calgary. A lot of them are based out west anyway, so it's not too expensive for them to go to a place like Calgary Stampede. I don't know how much influence they have in policy making. I don't know how many of them will actually find their way to a campaign where they will have put skin in the game and actually sort of, you know, like knock on doors for a candidate as opposed to go to a rally and just put something online about it. But there's. I think there's some sort of influence there that is. It's more than nothing. But I don't know if it amounts to a significant shift in how conservative broadlies, especially conservative voters generally think about politics.

[Jamie Poisson]

These influencers, I wonder if you could kind of flesh out for me a little bit more what version of the conservative party they're kind of most interested in.

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

They seem broadly to be the most interested in a conservative party that loves to attack liberals. I think that's the easiest way to sum it up. They don't believe that Mark Carney is anything, in some cases anyway, is anything more than another Trudeau. All he's doing is collecting taxes, increasing taxes, spending tax money on programs that favor liberal insiders like the idea that these liberals are just in it for themselves. And a lot of the influencers online really just love fueling that because they truly believe that. And so they don't so much get to the practical governing part. Right. They don't say, here's what we believe a conservative movement should actually accomplish on the way to getting to power. It's more like, boy, do I hate liberals. Which is perfectly fine. People online are allowed to be that way. But I think that is what maybe limits their influence in the actual machinery of the party to this point anyway, is there are a lot of people like some of the characters we mentioned before. Dan Robertson, another Harper era guy, well respected by many, also wrote about this recently. They want to focus on winning and they want to focus on pulling the actual levers of power that help get you there. The influencers, not so much. They are happy to be disappointed in liberals.

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah, I just. When Polly had made those remarks. Do you think in a way he might have been speaking to these guys?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Yeah, sure. Yeah. I think he probably had a few audiences in mind. I think one was himself. It sounded like an outburst more than a planned line. I don't know that for sure, but sometimes you can tell what is on the script and what is a verbal aside that he just couldn't help but deliver. I think another audience was just the room, right? It was. He knew these people would applaud if he called out Carrie Lynn Finley's presence in the room because she's the kind of conservative that people at Calgary Stampede would applaud heartily. And she did get one of the biggest cheers of the night. And then probably Cory Ten Eyck was intended audience. He knew that would get back to Corey and then. Yeah, the kind of the ID of the Conservative movement, the influencers who would take that and run love the idea that their party leader is going after a Conservative they don't like because they don't like Doug Ford. They don't like how Ontario does conservative politics. Yeah, I'm sure that was an audience as well.

[Jamie Poisson]

Let's step away from Conservative insiders and influencers now and look at the Conservative caucus itself, the actual MPs who make up the Conservative Party in opposition. And I know that they lost yet another one of their own this month in Quebec. MP Richard Martel. He didn't cross the floor to the Liberals. Rather he was appointed by Mark Carney to the Senate. And just in general, what is the vibe in caucus right now?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

I think the vibe starts with thank God it's the summer and we don't have to be in Ottawa anymore. Which is, I think, more true for Conservatives than any other party except maybe the NDP in the last few months. Then they get home and now they're spending their summers at barbecues and with constituents. And they're kind of in what they would probably call listening mode. Buzzwordy. But they do go to a lot of events and talk to a lot of people about the state of affairs in this country. I think most MPs legitimately really do enjoy that part of this and probably aren't thinking a whole lot about how to shiv their leader or what's waiting for them when they get back to Ottawa at the end of September. What the future of their party is at this juncture a few years out from an election. I just think it is not like the thing that is going to obsess them. They're not going to lose sleep over is the middle of July, it's hot out and they don't have to at this stage think that much about the rail politic of being a Conservative.

[Jamie Poisson]

Though I was interested to read on Monday, I think it was in the Hill Times, they quoted this unnamed Conservative MP as saying, pardon my language here. The morale is in the absolute chitter. Is that something that you're hearing as well?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Yeah, I mean, I think that kind of goes part and parcel of what I'm saying. Like they don't feel great about being in Ottawa because every time they come here they're reminded that they lost, that they have very limited power. They can filibuster a bill, they can slow things down, they can be jerks about it, but they can't stop a lot. As long as the Liberals have a majority and as long as that election is like years away, man, they're just, they're not going to want to think about it. So now they have kind of an excuse, they can enter summer mode. I have no reason to think that the unnamed Hill Times source is on the wrong track there. I also wouldn't overstate it though. Like Pierre Poliev's leadership result, 87.5% support in January. It was real. I don't think if he did it again today, he'd be under 50%. Like, I think not enough has changed in the country to kill his hopes of one day becoming Prime Minister. I think his hold on the leadership is relatively solid at this point. But in part I think that's because it's the summer.

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah. I mean, because I don't know if you would agree with this, but it seemed to me like even before the summer, his kind of hold on the party was fraying a little bit. Hold on the caucus right from the top. We've seen other MPs making statements that seem to be off message track. Our Conservative MP Jamil Giovanni, calling out

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

what he called liberal degeneracy.

[Unidentified Conservative Commentator]

Disgusting images of him at the Toronto Pride parade.

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

I think it's shameful that we have a Prime Minister shaking hands with half

[Unidentified Conservative Commentator]

naked dudes wearing perverted costumes at a parade. I also think it's especially shameful that

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

there were children present during that spectacle.

[Jamie Poisson]

That's pretty inflammatory, divisive language. Like, do you think that that statement was greenlit by Pierre Poliev's office or is Giovanni doing his own thing there?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

I think Jamil Giovanni is doing his own thing there. And I think it's worth also distinguishing between Poliev's hold on power at least as you can define the conservative leadership as holding power and keeping control of his caucus because I think he can be relatively safe in his job but be losing a little bit of control of his caucus's statements. It's a huge 180 from about a year ago. In the last federal election. I had one conservative candidate speak to me on the record the entire time. They were just locked down. And that was true in a lot of ways in a lot of places. Now conservatives are much freer to say what they think, to choose their own track and to kind of follow it. Poliev is not clamping down as much, and the people in his office are not clamping down as much on members of Parliament who have controversial opinions. They even disagree with each other sometimes now, which is a fact of life in politics. Usually it stays behind closed doors. Now we're seeing that among conservatives a bit more out in the open, frankly, as a reporter, it's kind of, it's, it's like kind of nice that conservatives will now talk more because we get legitimately a better sense of how they view the world and what they want to accomplish. But if you're a leader who wants message discipline, it's, it's not, it's clearly not a poly priority right now.

[Jamie Poisson]

Just to come back squarely to this feud that's been spilling out into the open too. You mentioned before Dan Robertson, former Harper advisor, he had this piece that he wrote on Substack that gets republished in the Walrus called the Conservative Feud is Embarrassing, Grow Up. And he writes that there is no version of internal conservative warfare that ends well. But at this point, do you see this ending at all? Do you see any signs that everyone's going to kind of kiss and make up here? How could this be reigned in?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Well, he's one of the advocates for getting offline, right? And going and, and not just fighting these permanent awkward battles on the Internet. That sounds like the kind of thing you would do at a party gathering like they had in Calgary earlier this year. It sounds like something you might do if enough of you are in Calgary again for stampede, where you're flipping pancakes and you're going to boozy receptions and maybe that's where you can settle some differences. I don't know what the obvious place, what the obvious arena for that is. In lieu of these examples I've just discussed, like, usually parties settle these things in competitions or at policy conventions. The B.C. conservative leadership race has only produced a new fracture. The stampede, as much as the conservative mps who were there were happy to be there. They were flipping pancakes, having a good time. It's a pretty cool place to be. It's a pretty fun time. You know, obviously there wasn't a lack of conservative discourse coming out of it about the future of the party, so that didn't serve that purpose. I. I don't know what their next opportunity is for that, aside from a caucus meeting back in Ottawa, a place a lot of these conservatives would rather not be.

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah, I just one final question for you. Do you get the sense here that there are personalities involved in all of this that might not be conducive to all of branches or this kind of hashing it out solution that other people in the party seem to be advocating?

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Well, Dan Robertson also wrote that, and I'm paraphrasing here, so I don't want to misquote him, but like, the leader of the party sets the tone. And so if Pierre Poliev didn't want to inflame a fight with a Doug Ford advisor, very successful one at that, he wouldn't have to. He doesn't have to. He doesn't have to go after, even as collateral damage, an unsuccessful B.C. conservative candidate who probably has a pretty bright future in the Federal Conservative Party or the provincial wing. These are all choices he makes. He could be different. And at times over his years as Conservative leader, he has been different, including quite recently, he talked about how he respects Mark Carney. Mark Carney respects him like they have a decent relationship. That was earlier this year. They were seen before they both left the country for their various international sojourns, talking in the House of Commons lobby about their trips. Like they seem to be truly two leaders just talking to each other on respectful terms. But that's not the poly we saw at Stampede. It's not the poly of we're seeing a lot this summer. So he seems to kind of, yo, yo. Between these versions of himself, he could be. He could stick to one track. He could end a certain amount of fighting, not all of it. No leader can solve every problem internally, but I don't know who else you point to.

[Jamie Poisson]

All right, Nick, this was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for coming on.

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

Thanks for having me.

[Jamie Poisson]

All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

[Nick Taylor-Vasey]

For more cbc podcasts, go to cbc ca podcasts.