NDP Representative (2:58)

I can tell you that New Democrats are going to take the time to study this budget. We're going to consult with stakeholders, we're going to talk to Canadians, particularly working Canadians, and review this budget to see if this budget passes our lens of whether it works for working Canadians.

Aaron Wary (3:15)

And so I don't think anyone in Ottawa thought there was going to be an election or that the budget was going to be defeated, but it wasn't quite clear how we were going to avoid having an election. And, you know, so in the end, the seven NDP MPs, five of them voted against the budget. Two abstained. That was enough. With the two abstentions on the Conservative side, plus Elizabeth May, the Green mp, voting with the budget, that was enough for this, you know, narrow victory for the Liberals for the budget. But it maybe doesn't necessarily bode well going forward for how, maybe how long this parliament's gonna last.

Jamie Poisson (3:51)

I wanna get into that a little bit more with you later, and I wanna talk about Elizabeth May specifically in a minute. But the MPs that abstained, have we heard anything from them about why they abstain?

Aaron Wary (4:03)

Yeah. So the NDP votes. You know, the NDP comes out after the vote has happened and they say, look, we didn't like this budget.

NDP Representative (4:10)

This is a budget that does not address the real needs facing Canadians. It fails to meet the moment, deliver transformational change, or address the urgent needs facing Canadians.

Aaron Wary (4:23)

But we also heard crystal clear from Canadians that they don't want an election.

NDP Representative (4:28)

The consequences of defeating this budget would not be to improve it or to help Canadians. It would be to plunge the country into an election only months after the last one. And while we still face an existential threat from the Trump administration, and so.

Aaron Wary (4:46)

The majority of us have voted against the budget, but we didn't do so in numbers and sufficient to defeat the budget, they sort of made this argument that they had tried discussing the situation with the government and tried, you know, making suggestions or requests and that the government hadn't been interested in, in meeting them halfway or making the changes they.

NDP Representative (5:05)

Were looking for on that basis, we engaged in conversations with the government about improvements that could strengthen the budget and earn our support. At this time, the Liberals have not been willing to make those changes.

Aaron Wary (5:20)

It's a little unclear exactly what the requests were or what they were looking for. So it's hard to judge exactly what happened there. But their argument basically comes down to, you know, look, they don't want to be seen to be supporting everything in this budget, but at the same time, they. They don't want to trigger an election. And so this is where they've kind of landed. And the Conservative MPs, it's a bit more complicated. So one of them, Shannon Stubbs, is on a medical leave. You know, that could be a perfectly credible explanation for not voting. The other one is Matt Genierou, which is a bit more curious. He is the Conservative backbencher who announced just before the budget that he was going to be resigning from the Conservative Caucus and leaving politics. And there was lots of speculation that maybe he was being courted by the Liberals or this was his way of kind of leaving the Conservative caucus without crossing the floor. But then the explanation, the official explanation from the Conservative Party was, oh, no, he's actually gonna stay on as an MP until the spring. But we've now had three votes where he hasn't voted. And that's a bit curious and a bit hard to understand in the context of that official explanation. If he's gonna stick around until the. Is he simply not going to vote anymore or, you know, him not voting, is that sort of an implicit message that he's, you know, essentially not standing with the Conservatives anymore?

Jamie Poisson (6:44)

Right, right. And of course, we do know that he met with Prime Minister Mark Cardi at one point. And also there were all these rumors flying around that he was subject to this pressure campaign to not cross the floor to the Liberals, though he has denied those. I am dying to talk to you about this moment. So the NDP vote comes in. It's clear that the budget is going to pass. Then what happens?

Aaron Wary (7:21)

Yeah, so there's there's sort of two ways to vote now in the House of Commons. There is the, you know, the traditional way of standing up in your spot and being counted. But there's also, now, since the pandemic, MPs are able to vote virtually through their phones. And at the end of sort of the voting period, the speaker will say, you know, if there's any MPs who experience technical difficulties and want to register their votes now, please do so. And at this moment in the. In the vote, two MPs, two experienced Conservative MPs, Scott Reed and Andrew Scheer, suddenly appear in the House. Official opposition House leader has a point. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I had technical difficulty. I would like to vote no. Mr. Mr. Reed. Mr. Reed.

Jamie Poisson (8:07)

You can just recognize.

Aaron Wary (8:08)

Mr. Reed. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I was unable to use my app. I would like to vote no. And this is so kind of odd and kind of unusual that people immediately raise questions of, oh, we're conservative. Were the conservatives holding back a couple votes essentially, to see how the vote would go before they went forward? And essentially, were the conservatives trying to essentially avoid triggering an election? And this leads to today, Internet sleuths are going over video footage and thinking that maybe they see Scott Reid and Andrew Scheer behind the curtains in the House of Commons, and there's all sorts of intrigue about what exactly happened in this moment.

Jamie Poisson (8:58)

Yeah. And I guess Scheer's chief of staff has added, like, a bit more information to this mystery. Am I right to say that?

Aaron Wary (9:07)

Yeah. So the, there's an official denial that, that Scott Reeden and Andrew Scheer were behind the curtain. And, and Andrew Scheer's chief of staff has said that he was tied up with a, a committee meeting across the street from where the House of Commons now is. So that, you know, that may solve that mystery. I guess it does. You know, there is still this kind of conversation about, you know, did conservatives really want an election? Did they really want to trigger an election? Because I think regardless of what happened with Scott Reid and Andrew Scheer, you know, it's fair to point out that that while the conservatives opposed the budget, they didn't, they weren't loudly calling for an election. And if you, you know, sort of look at public polling, if you sort of look at what the situation is politically across the country, you wouldn't say that the conservatives would be in a particularly advantageous position to go into an election right now. So it's possible that again, whatever happened with these votes, the conservatives weren't really were kind of hoping that the government wouldn't fall. This week, Foreign.

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Jamie Poisson (11:29)

Let's talk about Elizabeth May a little bit more now. So on Sunday, she said that she was planning to vote no, like vote against the budget.

Elizabeth May (11:38)

So I'm in a dilemma, obviously, and I'm still talking to ministers and representatives from the Prime Minister's office and others to see what could we do before tomorrow afternoon to affect my vote, because right now I'm a no.

Jamie Poisson (11:53)

But as you mentioned, she ultimately became the only member of the opposition to vote with the Liberals. Why did she pull that 180? Did she get anything from it?

Aaron Wary (12:03)

Yeah. So her argument is that she essentially got the Liberals to commit, the Prime Minister himself to commit to pursuing or meeting Canada's international greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, which they had not. Mark Carney himself had never sort of explicitly said he was still committed to meeting those targets. And there was another, again, kind of an odd moment in question period shortly before the vote where Elizabeth May got up during question periods, seemingly in a spot that would normally go to a Liberal backbencher to ask this question and get Mark Carney to state on the record, you know, in the House of Commons, that they were committed to this target?

Elizabeth May (12:41)

Can the Prime Minister agree that it is a deficiency in the budget that our legally binding Paris commitments are not mentioned? Can he confirm here on the floor of this House that in passing this budget, the government is committed to holding to as far below 2 degrees as possible, to funding climate adaptation, to delivering on the nature strategy and continuing to engage in meaningful indigenous reconciliation.

Aaron Wary (13:13)

And that's seemingly what she got out of it. Mr. Speaker, this budget puts us on the path for real results for climate, for nature, for reconciliation. I can confirm to this House that we will respect our Paris commitments for climate change and we're determined to achieve them? I can confirm again, I think, you know, if you listen to her answer after question period, part of the problem was that she knew no one wanted an election, and so how much leverage she really had I think is debatable. And so she at least got this out of it.

Elizabeth May (13:43)

Against what I had expected to say to you today. I'm going to vote yes for the country, for the planet, and for my hope in the future. The Liberals can't count on me voting confidence in the government. Again, without delivering on the words I heard.

Aaron Wary (13:59)

You know, it's not nothing, but I don't know that it's a sort of groundbreaking moment, necessarily.

Jamie Poisson (14:04)

Right. So I guess it's not fair to describe her necessarily as some kind of kingmaker, as some kind of power broker, because I would.

Aaron Wary (14:13)

No, I mean, she, you know, she certainly has some power because the, the, you know, the gap between what the Liberals have and a majority is so small. There are scenarios where her vote comes into play, but again, it's, you know, fairly limited because she, again, is just one vote.

Jamie Poisson (14:28)

You know, I have been thinking about this idea a little bit more. So we have been talking about these floor crossings recently, Conservatives going to the Liberals. But also we've kicked around the idea that perhaps an NDP MP could also cross to the Liberals. And I'm just wondering if you were an MP in that Parliament right now, do you look at Elizabeth May and think, like, maybe their move for me is to just sit as an independent. Maybe I could just be this lone kind of power broker, some MP kind of anywhere in the country.

Aaron Wary (15:03)

I mean, I think it's an interesting idea. I think you could make an argument that MPs in this parliament could have real power to use and could have real influence over things in this particular moment. It might be hard to use that leverage because again, I think the Prime Minister gives all indications that he understands that Canadians don't want an election and that there's no reason to believe that the Liberals would suffer for an election happening right now. So I don't know that you can necessarily say to the pm, as an independent mp, as anybody, do what I want, or I'll vote against this budget. Because I think his response would be, go ahead, I'll happily go into an election. But I think there are scenarios maybe six months from now, maybe a year from now, where individual MPs could have a bit more power and could have a bit more leverage to say, hey, I'm willing to vote for this budget if you do X, Y and Z. And there may be more of a reason for the Prime Minister to look at those considerations. But it does, you know, the entire conversation about floor crossers and the Liberals may be, you know, trying to bring people over. I mean, that really is animated by the fact that it's, it's they're just so close to a majority that just one or two MPs moving or voting with the government. Yeah, conceivably, could be enough to really advance things.

Jamie Poisson (16:34)

So you and I and David Coletto did a pod right after the budget the other week, and we talked about some of the highlights in it, generally how this was a budget that focuses a lot more on building things, not necessarily directly investing in people with new programs. Just as one illustration that I think is telling the COVID of Justin Trudeau's budgets were, I think often stuff like smiling people and their children. And Mark Carney's is like a literal icebreaker, like a boat. What else have you been thinking about when it comes to the budget, which has now passed since we last spoke about it?

Aaron Wary (17:09)

I think the budget produced some pretty divergent reactions, you know, in terms of some people saying it's too much, some people saying it's not enough. I think the most, maybe the most interesting critique we've seen so far came from this liberal backbencher, Nathaniel Erskine Smith, who's built up a reputation for being very independent minded and willing to offer criticism of his own side or offer his own thoughts on what the government is doing. And he put out this, you know, blog post, I guess, and said, I've seen the budget described as investment focused, as austerity, as reckless. Can it be all of those things at once? Look, I won't go through all 493 pages. I will spare you from that. But here's a rundown of what I see as the good, the bad and the ugly from Budget 2025 raised some interesting points about where it, you know, maybe comes up short, but then also had this kind of joke at the end where he said that he had joked to colleagues that I joked that it was a pretty good progressive conservative budget. I joked, I'll get flack for that. It's a joke. But hey, some conservatives agree. And, you know, he kind of pointed to Chris Dontremont crossing the aisle from the Conservatives to Liberals to kind of underline that joke. And I think as much as maybe he was joking, I think it is an interesting idea that this is, you know, still a liberal budget, but it's maybe more of a progressive conservative budget than we have seen in the past 10 years.

Jamie Poisson (18:30)

How tell me more about how the.

Aaron Wary (18:32)

Entire idea of this sort of progressive conservative kind of comes from the old it still exists in some of the in, in many of the provinces. The old idea of a progressive conservative party, which has come to be regarded as, you know, someone who's economically conservative but socially liberal, you know, still, you know, believes in. In smaller government or believes in not overly expanding government, but is still sort of progressive in their social values, still willing to kind of use government in some cases, not necessarily wedded to a very, very strict understanding of conservative ideology. And that party essentially ceased to exist after Brian Mulroney's government. It sort of limps along for a while and then gets subsumed into the modern Conservative Party. And this throwaway joke that Erskine Smith made, it does come after some people have suggested, you know, Mark Carney, yes, he's a liberal, but he's really kind of a. An old school progressive conservative in, in certain ways. And I think that's interesting in the sense that, you know, the Liberal Party in its long history has always been a bit, I guess, flexible in its politics. It's been at times very progressive. You know, if you think about the Justin Trudeau government, it's been more kind of, you know, what people refer to as blue Liberals, kind of very business oriented and focused on reducing the deficit. So you think of like Paul Martin's government, and I think putting Mark Carney within that kind of tradition of progressive conservatism is an interesting statement on maybe where the Liberal Party is at and also kind of where the political conversation in Canada has gotten. Because as much as you could say Mark Carney is a progressive Conservative, I think it would be hard to say he's a conservative in the kind of Pierre Poliev model of conservatism.

Jamie Poisson (20:22)

Right. But let me even push back on the idea that it's a Progressive Conservative government because it's running a $78 billion deficit. It maintains all the social programs the Trudeau, the big ones introduced Canada, child benefit, $10 a day, childcare, dental care, pharmacare. It's also minimizing cuts to the departments for Crown, Indigenous Relations, Indigenous Services, and Women and Gender Equal. All these other departments have been told to cut 15% and these guys haven't. Right. So, I mean, how would you respond to that? I mean, the Conservatives certainly are not talking about it like it's a progressive Conservative budget.

Aaron Wary (21:04)

Right? Yeah, it's definitely hard to say this is a particularly conservative budget because of that big deficit number because, you know, he's not necessarily going out and slashing taxes. He's not full scale pulling back on some of the social programs that Justin Trudeau's government brought in. But it also kind of gets at sort of the dueling messages of this budget which is, you know. Yes. As you say, on the one hand, it's running a big deficit. You know, there is some conservatism, I guess, in this budget insofar as there's cost cutting, it's very business oriented, it's very focused on sort of economic growth and macroeconomics. But it's also very progressive insofar as, you know, all the social programs, the deficit spending, things like that, that aren't even necessarily a departure from, from what Justin Trudeau did.

Jamie Poisson (21:57)

Yeah. I just, I wonder, would another way to look at the budget be to not really look at it as ideological, but to look at it as something that's more pragmatic than anything else. Right. Something that allowed two Conservatives to abstain, one to cross the floor, and then two NDP MPs abstain, and also Elizabeth may vote for it.

Aaron Wary (22:24)

Yeah, I think that's an interesting way to look at it. And it, you know, I suspect it's something that Mark Carney would kind of be happy to, you know, have people think of it that way to say, look, I'm just being pragmatic. I'm not wedded to ideology. I'm, I'm looking at what works and what I think will work. And I think he sort of has presented him himself in that way, in kind of, you know, talking about, I'm an economist, I'm a business person, I'm not interested in, you know, necessarily politics. I'm interested in what works. I think that responds to probably what some Canadians are looking for right now. I mean, I think the danger is, and I think we talked about this when we did the budget episode. I think always the danger, of course, is that the Conservatives will say this isn't a conservative enough budget. And progressives will say, well, this isn't a progressive enough budget, and you end up getting kind of pulled apart. But I think if there is sort of a center that exists somewhere in Canadian politics, you can see Carney trying to kind of hit it and to sort of hold together the broader coalition that he's built of both the progressives that Justin Trudeau brought together, the progressives who may fear a Pierre Poliev government and the kind of middle of the road, moderate centrists, progressive Conservative voters who want a prime minister who's focused on the economy and focused on housing and, you know, want someone who's going to deal with Trump and those kinds of things. And this budget kind of tries, I guess, in a way to hold that coalition together.

Jamie Poisson (23:59)

Yeah. I would normally end the episode here, but I have to ask you why Richard Gere, the actor Richard Kier was on Parliament Hill yesterday.

Aaron Wary (24:09)

Yeah. To add to all of yesterday's drama, People magazine's sex, sexiest man of the year from 1999. And the Star of Pretty Woman was also on the, on Parliament Hill. You picked a heck of a day to come up Parliament Hill with all the drama behind all the drama going on. Are you getting time in reception to talk about the issue of Tibet with Canadian parliamentarians?

Jamie Poisson (24:30)

Everybody seems very interested.

Aaron Wary (24:34)

Sadly not offering his services as prime minister, but advocating on behalf of Tibet, which is a, a long term cause for him. It was a, it was a lobbying day on the hill for people who are concerned about Tibet and this is a long standing issue of his and so that's why he was there. But yes, in the middle of everyone waiting around to see whether we were about to be plunged into an election, Richard Gere was walking around.

Jamie Poisson (24:56)

I love it. Aaron, thank you.

Aaron Wary (24:59)

Anytime.

Jamie Poisson (25:08)

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

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