Power Play #2174: Are Liberals courting more floor crossers?

Hi there and welcome to Powerplay. I'm Vashikotello's in Ottawa on this Thursday.

Tonight reports of a military hub youth by Canadians hit by Iranian missiles.

All lives are accounted for.

We ask the government to be transparent, provide all the details.

The opposition is demanding answers after Love Press reports a military facility in Kuwait

was hit in a missile attack ten days ago. A source familiar with the matter tells CTV News

it's not a Canadian base per se, but rather a hub that's used by multiple countries including Canada.

We're going to bring you the latest information we have on that plus reaction coming up then.

Are the Liberals courting more floor crossers?

Is that still the case?

Oh I think very much so.

Well look we have a job to do here as an official opposition.

Government House leader Steve McKinnon suggests conversations are ongoing with opposition MPs.

The latest comments come after the Prime Minister poached his fourth MP in his many months.

We're going to unpack the floor crossing follow and implications for an election.

With our front bench, Christy Clark, Markamented Chino, James Moore, and Tony Clement will all be here.

Plus, Pierre Pauliev heads south of the border.

Canada can't control every decision made in Washington.

And I'll leave the negotiating up to our government.

But we can leverage the goodwill and shared interests with the American people.

The leader of the Conservative Party is traveling to the United States, his first trip there as opposition leader.

What are the states of and strategy behind that?

Visit our panelist standing by to talk about that a little bit later on in the show first though.

The reality is that lawful access currently is as important as forensics is.

Our ability to access information lawfully with the barriers and not the barriers, but the guardrails to protect people's privacy interests are crucial to almost every significant crime that we investigate.

Reaction from police this afternoon to the Fed's new bill, they say will help law enforcement investigate threats.

That new bill, Bill C-22, is a revised version of the government's shelved lawful access legislation from last spring, which drew major pushback from civil liberty groups and opposition parties for allowing way too much access to personal information without a warrant.

Here's what this new bill proposes.

Law enforcement will be limited to demanding confirmation, a yes or no answer, from telecom companies like Bell and Rogers about whether they have provided services to a specific person.

If police want to get more information like on browsing history, for example, they have to convince a court to get a warrant.

The new bill also allows police to seek authority to request transmission data or subscriber information from foreign companies like Google, Meta or OpenAI.

Here with me to talk more about that is Canada's Public Safety Minister Gary and Anna Sangri.

I'm Minister Pleasure to welcome you back to studio. I appreciate you making the time.

I want to start off on this bill today. You described the intent of it to better equip law enforcement with the tools to combat crime in a digital age.

Why did the first version of this bill go so much further than this one? And do you concede you got it wrong initially?

So we've had a number of different elements in Bill C-2, some seven or eight different elements that much of it spoke about the border.

The border controls increase access for searches, our brown searches, for example, let's see if you have facilities.

So what we realized along the way is that we need to do a bit more work on the lawful access piece of the legislation, as well as there's a postal piece as well, which still remains in C-2.

We've advanced Bill C-12. It's going through the Senate as we speak. And we've worked since the fall with stakeholders, with industry groups, with civil society academics as well as law enforcement.

We had the former MP Murray Rankin facilitate these meetings and mediate and come up with some recommendations.

So based on that, we have narrowed the scope, what we heard from people are that this was overly broad.

There were concerns that, for example, law enforcement could go and ask a psychiatrist for medical information. So we have specific exclusions on medical information, specific exclusions on solicitor clan privilege.

And we were able to put some additional safeguards, which now will enable law enforcement to just seek information from electronic service providers.

What I don't understand is why that narrowed scope was not the initial piece of legislation. And I ask because I think it leads Canadians to question your government's motivation.

It wasn't just that you came to the realization that this stuff was concerning. You were forced into that realization by a number of civil society groups who came forward and said, whoa, what is all of this expanded power for law enforcement?

Without the checks we become accustomed to and we believe are necessary in this society. Like, how do you counter the sense from Canadians that your motive here was not as altruistic as your point painting it right now?

Well, look, we realized along the way that the lawflexes regime as introducing Bill C2 needed work and we listened to people's comments, we listened to the criticism of civil society.

The same time we also sought input from law enforcement to see, okay, what is it that you guys really need? As you're aware, we introduced a legislation within days of being elected if you recall.

And we needed the time. And in retrospect, we needed the time to reflect. And I believe we've found the right balance.

When you combine that with the many other elements in the original C2 on border, it just complicated the conversation. Now we have a very narrow, narrowly defined set of guidelines as well as scope of the parameters of what the law enforcement could do.

And we have consulted extensively, so today we had the RCMP, OPP, Chiefs of Police, police unions, all representing their perspectives to say that this is long overdue. In fact, three decades overdue.

Should this process not serve as a cautionary tale for your government about the lack of effectiveness and undemocratic nature of omnibus bills? Like, is this reason to pause?

An approach that the Liberals used to criticize, the Stephen Harper government for, and perhaps keep your bills more narrowly focused instead of lumping it all in one?

Look, I think there's a number of things that we've learned from this experience. The most important one being the need to have greater consultations. And here, I believe we managed to do that.

But does it also provide a cautionary note with great respect, Minister, that like your budget implementation bill, which took a really long time to make its way through the House, that that isn't perhaps serving democracy best, throwing so much stuff at members of the opposition, at members of parliament.

And would it not serve your government and Canadians better to take the approach that you would have advocated for when you were an opposition?

So, look, let's look at Bill C8, for example, right? It's on cybersecurity, very narrow in scope. It has taken way longer for a very simple bill that, in fact, in the previous parliament was approved except for a very technical fix.

It's taken seven months now. We have Bill C9, which, as you're aware.

There's some unique strings there, right?

But notwithstanding that, I think to your point, we have many bills that are very narrowly focused. It doesn't mean that it will get better consensus when we presented.

But might it be more democratic?

Well, I mean, look, democratic would be when, essentially, when we go through the process, when we listen to the opposition, we are open to making amendments.

We've always said that. We're open to recommendations from the Senate. And that is a democratic process.

As these bills, including omnibus bills, like you said, the Budget Implementation Act, it had several ministers who went to committee.

You know, every aspect of that bill was scrutinized and essentially passed, but with the requisite scrutiny required.

Sure. I would just point out that is something that the Liberals used to. I remember covering it, say, all the time was undemocratic about Stephen Harper, but now, essentially, you're arguing serves your purposes.

You want to ask one more question about the bill, though, before I move on to another subject. And that is where foreign companies are concerned.

Because as I understand it, and please do try to be if I'm wrong, the legislation also formalizes how Canadian law enforcement make information requests to foreign companies like open AI or big social media companies.

But it doesn't require them to report suspicious activity. You know why I'm asking, obviously, the case in Tumblr Ridge. Why not? Why isn't that part of this?

We have a very specific agreement with foreign other countries relating to mutually assistance agreement on law enforcement.

So it is very narrow in scope. So it doesn't enable us to put requirements such as compliance requirements. It's much more on gathering information.

And we have it. The U.S. law enforcement comes to Canada with their authorization. And we provide that information.

There is a very important conversation that's happening with open AI and other social media companies. There is another bill that is being worked on by Minister Miller.

I was part of the conversation with open AI. And look, I think there are some critical issues that we have to address, and they will be addressed.

Let me ask you specifically, though. And obviously, you're not going to be able to tell me what's in online harms. But is it your government's position that there is a way, I don't know if you're going to pursue or not, but that there is a way to compel these companies to report something like was the case in Tumblr Ridge to authorities.

Like, is there the ability to compel? And I ask because these companies do not have a great record of doing things on their own.

Look, there's conversations that are taking place. There's consultations that are taking place. What I can tell you is Minister Miller will go as far as he can to ensure that incidents such as, or set of circumstances, such as we've seen with Tumblr Ridge does not happen again.

Are you examining the possibility of forcing them, like compiling them? Is that part of the conversation?

I don't want to preempt any, you know, the work that he's doing. What I will say is that, you know, every attempt is, you know, making every effort to ensure that there's greater compliance and setting the standards and setting demands on basic principles that will oblige an individual.

If there are not any of those now, right? That's the point currently, it's not there and it's something that we need to do absolutely.

I was the first part of my conversation with federal public safety minister Gary and Anna Sangri. I also asked him about accusations that there are officials associated with Iran's regime in Canada, and that the government isn't doing enough to deport them.

That's the accusation from the opposition and some members of the Iranian diaspora. You can catch his answer and the rest of that conversation this Sunday morning on question period right across CTV.

We're going to turn now, though, to some other news. Love Press is reporting that a Canadian military facility in Kuwait was hit in an Iranian missile attack ten days ago.

An investigation from that outlet reveals a fortified shelter was heavily damaged. Soldiers who were in another building at the time of the attack escaped without injury.

The incident was never disclosed, though, to parliamentarians. A source in the Department of National Defense tells CTV News that the hub hit is not a Canadian base per se, but rather an operational facility used by multiple countries, including Canada.

Foreign Affairs minister Anita Anand faced questions from reporters this afternoon and conservative defense critic James Buzant also delivered a statement on the subject. Have a listen to both.

I did speak with minister McGinty this morning, and he affirmed to me that all lives are accounted for.

We ask the government to be transparent to provide all the details and information rather than us learning about it ten days, eleven days after the fact.

And we will certainly bring you more information on that story as we learn more coming up tonight on power play more on the conflict in Iran.

The conservatives are calling on the government to say more about people do more about people in this country potentially linked with the Iranian regime.

Conservative MP Shubh Majimdar just returned from a trip to the Middle East and he's my guest after a short break.

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Welcome back to power play. It's been almost two weeks since U.S.-Israeli forces jointly launched strikes on Iran, which has since led to retaliatory strikes and a conflict now expanded across the Middle East.

The Iranian diaspora in this country has long voiced worry about people with ties to the Iranian regime living here in Canada.

In 2022, the feds enacted a policy that banned officials associated with the IRGC from being here.

But so far, that policy has resulted in just one deportation. Shubh Majimdar is the conservative MP for Calgary Heritage.

He was in the Middle East when the war broke out and serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

He's with me live in studio right now.

Hi, Mr. Majimdar. Good to see you. Thank you very much for making the time.

So I actually just interviewed the public safety minister.

The whole section on Iran is going to air this Sunday, but I did want to play for you.

You know, I put a number of these concerns about IRGC linked officials being in Canada to him.

He did provide numbers, for example, 32 of the CBSA have investigated 28 of which have been referred to the refugee board, one that has been officially deported numbers that I'm sure you're familiar with.

Here is more largely, though, his defense of kind of the system that's in place and then I'll get your reaction through.

I want Canadians to be assured. I want Iranian Canadians to be assured that, you know, every member who we deem to be in admissible based on the listing, based on the information that we have.

And I implore members of the community to provide that information.

We will take decisive steps and that's exactly what we're doing now.

So they have this policy in place. The CBSA is following it and it's referring stuff to the refugee board.

Like that is the process that's in place. Does he not have a point?

A process versus results. I mean, two years ago we saw that there was a minimum, a conservative estimate of 700 of these officials in this country.

We've heard different numbers in the context of hundreds. The real number that matters is one.

They've only deported one in the last year that they've had the opportunity to act on these issues.

And even, like, can we agree that we can get to at least 10 by the end of this week?

These are existential concerns for Iranian Canadians, Jewish Canadians, people in this country who are directly threatened by the R&GC on our streets.

We see mass protests here in this country of 450,000 people in the streets. These people are concerned that photos of them are being sent back to Tehran or across Iran for regime officials to exact revenge on their own families.

So there's no time to waste on this. Process is important, but it can't come at the expense of doing what's most important, which is protecting Canadians.

And I do understand that point, but should it be sacrifice because you think 10 people should be deported? Do you know what I'm saying?

Like, does the evidence exist to meet an evidentiary bar that meets the threshold that we have under the rule of law in this country to deport people? Like, do you know that for a fact?

Well, we know with great confidence that there's hundreds of people who, according to the government's own estimates, are in this country as regime officials.

I'm not talking about conscripts at a junior level. I'm talking about senior officials like ministers of transport and others who are in this country enjoying a life of luxury after having stolen from the mouths of their own people and are now in this country creating wreaking havoc.

It's unconscionable that this process would be so bulky that the minister wouldn't make the decisions necessary that he would not take to cabinet or bring to parliament if he needs them authorities to do so, but he doesn't.

What he needs to do is focus on accountability in his system to move the process quickly to deport these people who are threatening Canadians.

What's the solution, though, because I haven't seen, when you say 700, for example, there are certain members, ministers, people associated with the military.

But there's a detailed policy, basically, in place that says, these are the people that should not be here. Are you sure all the 700 are ministers? Because the CBSA has not come forward with those numbers.

Listen, I'm saying it doesn't even matter if it's hundreds that the Doug government has said and reduced in their numbers of the expectations. We know it's more than one.

And we know that of the people who are here, it should be abundantly clear that senior advisers to Ali Kamanai and others who have been part of the mass repression of their people should be deported from this country.

And the process can be streamlined and can be focused, especially if they focus with urgency because these people pose an existential risk to the safety of Canadians.

That's the number one responsibility of this government to protect Canadians and to hide behind process and allow the minister to get away with such disastrous delays is I think unacceptable to them and to the safety of our country.

Does the threshold to be specific from a policy perspective, like are you advocating for the threshold changing? Because the concern that the government has put forward to counter that question when I asked was about the possibility of sweeping up many people who are not tied to the regime through conscription part of me or other means.

Basically, like, if you don't meet that bar, we don't know for sure that you're guilty.

Like I said, junior conscripts to the regime that unwillingly or had very little choice to do so and have little to do with the state repression are not the ones we're talking about here.

We're talking about, if the threshold is so vague, then maybe tighten it just a little bit to go after the actual ones, the low hanging fruit that we know are responsible for regime repression and for the intimidation and transnational repression of Canadians here.

I want to ask more largely about your party stance where the conflict in Iran is concerned this week on multiple occasions I heard members of parliament from the conservative party talk about how they do support what's happening because they support regime change.

Right now, the son of the supreme leader is the new supreme leader. He today said we're going to keep the straight of hormones closed as long as this conflict goes on.

regime change has not happened. Does that impact your support for what the United States is doing?

Listen, I think at the end of the day the focus here is on a couple of things, including that.

The first is to degrade the regime's capacity to deliver ballistic missiles and nuclear payloads across the region.

Danger that I don't think the world can tolerate with the world's largest terror organization in the region and in the world to be incapable of delivering nuclear payloads.

The second is to degrade the regime's capacity to deploy drones as it has across the Middle East and upon its neighbors, including those who are not involved with the attacks of our allies.

There is accountability that is required for the besiege and the IRGC officials and the regime officials who have done massive repression of their own people and to constrain the regime's capacity to wreak havoc through terrorism and the support of terror organization across organizations across the Middle East.

When it comes to the actual composition of the government to follow, our party's position has always been consistent on this.

We want the Iranian people to be able to live in a democracy that is shaped by them for peace and freedom. They're the only ones who can determine ultimately what government will follow once this regime is degraded.

But that is the point that your party made this week, essentially, that we support this because of how bad the regime is.

In the regime, not dictating what replaces it, but that it does need to be replaced.

My point is, the president of the United States in launching this action has not been anywhere near as clear as your party.

Why are you supporting the action without that clarity?

We have the clarity on our own perspective, on our own terms.

Our party has long held the view that the clerical military dictatorship of Iran needs to be replaced with a democratic and peaceful government driven by the people of Iran.

That's been our position, independent of what Washington or other capitals might say, and we've held that position consistently as we do today.

I think that there is so much on the line today as a generational opportunity after 47 years of this clerical regime occupying these people in the concept of their own tyranny.

There's a chance now to replace that by the people of Iran, and it's once in a generational opportunity which I hope the people around will take.

You'll remember that the clerical dictatorship came into power rejecting the generational rulers of the Shah and beyond.

It's alarming that this would then be, they would treat the country as a family heirloom and allow the son of Ali Khamenei to take over.

I don't think any Iranian in the country wants to see the continuation of the clerical military dictatorship, and they have every right as conditions permit to rise up against their oppressors.

But what about what the United States is doing, and in particular the objectives as inconsistently described by Donald Trump lends you the view that that is what is going to happen or the intent behind the actions that are taken.

I take your point about everything you said about your party's position on the regime.

My question is not your party's position on the regime. It's your party's position on the actions launched by the United States. It's not the same thing.

I don't see how that's true, because I think at the end of the day what you've seen in the actions that have been taken by our allies and their self defense.

Remember, this is a regime that was sprinting to ballistic missile capacity that was amassing missiles that were backed by Chinese technologies, drones to try and create a buffer around their own nuclear capacity.

The nuclear capacity of this regime would have protected the regime in the long term. That's why they've been so obsessed with nuclear enrichment ultimately.

But a year ago, Donald Trump said they weren't anywhere close to getting a nuclear weapon. And months ago they were all of a sudden going to have them.

And despite the warnings after the interventions that were taken, the Iranian regime didn't decide to sit back and take the opportunity to behave better and to be a more rational, reasonable, mature actor in the region and for the world.

They instead decided to pursue these ballistic missile technologies to pursue enrichment of nuclear weapons to continue their terror campaigns across the region.

They showed no change of habit. They showed no change of regime demeanor.

It's so important right now that the degradation that we have seen in the Iranian regime has fundamentally altered it already to what extent we're not going to know quite yet because we are in a fog of war.

I think I is the son of the Supreme Commander, the new Supreme Commander.

We don't even know if he's really alive or around. Nobody's actually had eyes on him.

We've seen some AI-generated images of him.

But the regime certainly doesn't seem like the regime is completely out of power or anywhere close to it.

And I say that again with good news.

You're something that I think is interesting.

Does that not need to let me finish you? You don't mind.

Does that not need to be taken into account when establishing your party's position on what is happening?

Not just the gravity of the terribleness of the regime.

The first principles are that the regime's capacities to wreak havoc in terror and nuclear ambitions and repression on its own people have to be confronted and degraded.

That's been our position for a long time.

And that the government of Iran needs to be replaced by one that is generated by the people.

That's been our position for a long time. They are consistent with actions yesterday, today and tomorrow.

That's not something that we change perspectives on.

Ultimately, what we want to see in this region is a peaceful country that is capable of realizing it's immense potential and to end the kind of chaos it is sown for so long.

Do you believe that what Donald Trump is doing right now will lead to that?

It's going to be hard to see what the outcome fully is, but I do believe that the regime's capacities are significantly degraded.

And so far that's been a good thing for the world.

Okay, I'm going to leave it on that. Mr. Magimdar, pleasure to always thank you for making the time.

Glad to be here.

The president of Magimdar is a conservative MP sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

We're going to take a quick commercial break, but on the other end of that break, government House leaders Steve McKinnon says that liberals are talking with more opposition MPs to cross the floor.

We're going to bring you those latest comments from him and unpack what the newest floor across her means for both the governing curtain and opposition with our front bench.

Mark Marcoma Dachino, James Moore and Tony Cuman are all here in just two minutes. Stay right there.

In the past, you've alluded to the fact that you said the liberals were talking to more MPs who are unsatisfied with their parties about joining yours.

Where is that stand right now? Is that still the case?

Oh, I think very much so. I think that Canadians who live in conservative writings look at their MPs and wish they would spend more time proposing solutions, participating in this great project on which we've embarked.

Will Moore MPs cross the floor to the liberals? That was government House leader Steve McKinnon this morning when asked if his party is courting additional opposition members to defect to liberal ranks after the latest one, Lori Idlout from the NDP yesterday.

As you heard, he said those conversations are continuing. Deputy conservative leader Melissa Lansman was asked about those comments from Minister McKinnon. Here's what she told reporters.

Well, look, we have a job to do here as an official opposition. We're going to do that on the basis that 8 million Canadians supported us here.

41% of the population voted for us and we have a job to do for our constituents to make sure that we fight for a more affordable life, more affordable homes, safer streets.

And a more resilient Canada where we can stand on our own two feet. We're going to continue to do that and we're going to continue to do that as conservatives.

This week, Miss Idlout became the fourth MP to join the liberals from another party in his many months following three conservatives. This now puts the current government just two seats shy of a majority to note, though, well 172 seats is enough to reach that threshold.

They would still have to rely on the speaker of the house who's a liberal to cast tie-breaking votes. On April 13th, there will also be three bi-elections, two of which are considered safe liberal roddings in Toronto.

So the liberals could achieve that majority much sooner rather than later. Let's bring in our front bench to talk about all of that with me this evening, former BC Premier Christy Clark. She's a senior advisor now with Bennett Jones.

Mark Amitichino is former chief of staff to Prime Minister Mark Kerney and a former liberal cabinet minister. He's now a senior council and strategic advisor for castles.

CDV political analyst and former conservative industry minister James Moore is with us. He's now a policy advisor at Edelman.

And Tony Clement served in senior roles in conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet. He's now CEO of Tony Clement International. Hi everybody. Happy Thursday. Good to see you.

I'll start with you. Last night I talked to the liberal caucus chair James Maloney on air who was much less willing to say, oh yeah, there's talks still happening. We're trying for others.

Minister McKinnon was pretty candid in his comments there. Why do you think that is?

Well, I think first of all, that's what anybody would do here in a minority situation. You're going to be scraping and scratching to find anybody that you can induce to cross the floor. That always happens.

But I think really they also see that there's a lot of, you know, discomfort, little some loose fish on the other side of the aisle. So, you know, it's, it's never lost on members of parliaments and legislatures.

Who the people that are a little bit warm to the government could be so they go and they make a play, they build relationships.

And then they tell them, look, you know, we're going to try and do what we can to support you. And when you see what happened with the member from from Northern Canada, she got, you know, a university.

She got big money for child's children's health in the North. And, you know, that was sort of paving the way for it to come. So I wouldn't be, you'll kind of, you may be able to guess who the next MP is that they're trying to court based on where they decide to spend, spend a little more dough.

What does it mean for, like, if you could peel back the curtain a bit, Tony, for opposition parties. Like, you know, it's out in the open that this process is occurring that they're interested in that other MPs from other parties could be interested in moving over to the government.

Is there much you can do, let's say, as the leader of the conservatives or the leader of the NDP to try and blunt that?

Well, actually, first of all, I know I'm old fashioned. I thought the best way to achieve a majority government was to run for election and get a majority government. So all of this back room conversations, it's all a little bit unseemly, I must say.

Could it mean that more are interested, I suppose so, but you also have, I believe, a social contract with the people that elected you to serve your term as how they elected you.

Now, maybe I thought differently while in government, you know, there was a couple of people who came away, of course.

But I just think this is just so unseemly now. I mean, it's, I've changed my opinion. My opinion is, if you want to, if you want to change parties, run in a by election and get the sanction of the people, that's what I believe now.

Yeah, I would, I would guess Marco that once you're not on the receiving end of those, you know, MPs and outside of the fray and in parliament, it's definitely easier. We're not just different to look at it in a different way.

With those by elections that are coming up on April the 13th, two of them are in Toronto, roddings that, you know, Christopher Lynn and Bill Blair won by double digits, like by quite a bit. They're considered pretty safe.

Is a majority of 172, 173, 174, anything to feel incredibly secure about? Like, is that the kind of security, even from a governing perspective that this government you think is looking for?

Well, I don't know that there is a precise number. I mean, either way, we're talking about single digits in terms of the margin of the majority.

But, but I do want to come back to what I think are some of the themes that are playing out as we speak on the floor of the House of Commons.

One is that there has been some real warming or thying of relationships across the aisle. And I think just generally that is a good thing.

I mean, when Canadians sent us back with the minority parliament and expected us to work together, I'm not quite entirely sure they predicted all of the floor crossings that we have seen.

And there are some unusual patterns that are emerging. So, for example, did geographic diversity of where these members are coming from?

I think is interesting. I think the fact that the Prime Minister and the team have been able to pull from both sides of the political continuum, such as it exists still if it exists at all from the left and the right.

I think is an interesting pattern, but at all, I think we'll boil down to whether or not there are both personal reasons why a member feels compelled across the aisle as well as national interest reasons.

I think in the stories that have been told by the MPs, you've heard a bit of both. Again, I mean, I think that cynics would say, we'll take a look at how each of those individual MPs are doing in the polls, and they're either leading liberal or it's really, really tight.

But I think a more objective read is to take some of what they are saying at face value that they do care about their communities, they do care about the country.

We are facing a unique and singular crisis, and so they feel compelled to reevaluate where they feel most at home.

And I do got to say, as they come into the liberal caucus room, again, you can be skeptical and cynical about it, and far be it from me from questioning some of those who will be.

But I do think that there is an element of authenticity there around those relationships.

And I think the other really big looming question, which comes back to, I think, what you were getting at are alluding to a bit, Vashi, which is, what is the magic number, and does the team want to consider whether or not we go to a general or not?

And I don't think any of those decisions are taken, quite frankly.

And I think that the real question is, does this momentum give the prime minister the ability to continue to govern in this very unique crisis moment?

Why don't I throw that question over to James?

Because right now we are talking about a majority of 172, maybe 173, depending on how Quebec goes.

And then if there are other floor crossers, I don't think anyone is predicting 20 or 30, it's within a handful, right?

And so you're looking at a majority that is not massive in scope.

What do you think that does to the calculation of an election?

Whatever the margin is, the larger it is, it gives the government a little bit more of a cushion in terms of considering what they want to do with regard to their fiscal update this spring or the budget in the fall.

It might give them a little bit more room to consider not have to react to a domestic minority parliament audience that will be sort of have their nerves or braw on some of the issues that are going to come up in the Kuzma reconsiderations and if Donald Trump wants to aggregate from Kuzma and threatened to withdraw.

That could cause a lot of industries to panic. It could cause some issues to be put on a table that might be politically toxic if a government has a majority meant.

It might provide them a little bit of breathing room, which actually might be accreted to the country and what the new agreement might look like.

So there's some benefit to the country in with the comfort of majority. I think that's true.

One thing I would say though, I think is we probably close this topic is that, you know, I like Steve McKinnon a lot.

I think Minister McKinnon is an impressive guy. He's a friend of mine. I think he's got a lot of capabilities.

The government's approach to this in terms of how they're presenting this and as I said yesterday and strutting about this, I think it's not the right thing.

I think Tony's right. I think Canadian voters are not impressed by this. Voters are not impressed by politicians who go to a Christmas party of theirs of their party one day and then go to the Liberal Christmas party the next day and say, well, that's just kind of the way it goes.

Miss Adlaude who said that Abby Lewis should be the prime minister last week. And then this week says Mark Carney is a great prime minister.

And I'm walking down the stairs with him today. Voters are not impressed by that. It's very cynical. And then voters are right to be cynical about this.

I think a better approach for the government would be to say, you know, if you want to be on Mark Carney's team, you saw what he had to say and Davos in his speech and the recalibration of the world. You saw his budget.

What happened yesterday doesn't really matter if you if you're aligned with us and where Canada should go tomorrow, then we welcome you to be on board. Let's get back to work, but it's strutting around and talking about picking off the next and member of parliament voters aren't pressed by that.

It doesn't doesn't build confidence of the public in politics, public service or this government. Just keep doing what you're doing and say people are welcome to join and be dispassion about it. I think that's the better way to do it.

I've got 30 seconds left. Christie, I'll give you the last word on that.

I completely agree with James about that. I think that the strutting is not doing anybody any good. I think it does make people cynical about it.

It makes it feel like it's a game rather than a serious endeavor that they're engaged in. Having said that, though, I also don't agree with Tony and James about an election being called.

These are members of parliament who are elected as people, as individuals that's always been what our democracy has been founded on. It's not about the party, it's not about the leader, it's about the individual getting elected in those communities.

I know people cast their votes for a variety of reasons, but if individuals don't have the right to be able to choose to sit as an independent or with another party, fundamentally we give the leaders way, way too much dictatorial power over their own caucuses.

And that won't work.

Okay, I got to take a quick commercial break, but the entire front bench is back with me on the other end of that break. Pierre Pauliev is headed south of the border.

What are the stakes of and strategy behind a trip to the United States, the first official trip as opposition leader? Our front bench is going to talk about that next.

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Welcome back to power play. Pierre Pauliev is headed to the United States this week, his first official trip there as opposition leader.

Conservative party says he's meeting with auto leaders, energy executives, and elected officials to advocate for tariff free trade.

The trip starts tomorrow in Detroit. He'll then travel to Houston and Austin, Texas with New York City as his last stop.

He posted this video to social media about the trip.

We should all be reaching out to American business unions, media, governors, investors, mayors, civic leaders, and the administration itself as a work to fight for tariff free trade and security cooperation.

Look, Canada can't control every decision made in Washington, and I'll leave the negotiating up to our government, but we can leverage the goodwill and shared interests with the American people.

The front bench is back to talk about the strategy and stakes of the trip.

I'll start with you. This is not the first trip. It's the first one to the United States, but I think a few weeks ago we were talking about the trip he was taking to Europe, which included the UK and Germany.

Both those trips are the first time since he became opposition leader that he decided to embark on that.

What is your assessment of what the strategy is and how effective you think it is or isn't?

I think the strategy is to beef up one of the core competencies of being Prime Minister, and that is to give Pierre-Paul Lev some additional exposure on the international stage, so I think just objectively speaking, that's a positive thing.

I also think it builds on Pierre-Paul Lev's offer to the Prime Minister to be supportive to Team Canada.

I note that there hasn't been any obvious or explicit follow-up between both the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition, so it seems that this is really an initiative that Pierre-Paul Lev is taking on his own.

If there has been some consultation with the government, I think it would be smart of him to talk about that.

Otherwise, I think there are some risks. One of the risks is that he could get into a bit of the rhetoric that we saw play out on some of the podcasts that he engaged with in the UK, which was a bit of a divergence from that speech that he gave in Toronto, which we commented on about a couple of weeks ago, where he got some deserved compliments for it.

It was less partisan, it was less snarky, it was more about building out this brand as being a statesman.

I think if he goes to the United States and he plays to the base there, that that could cut against the grain of what I think the overarching strategy is, which is again to give himself some exposure to the international stage.

But it's not completely unfraught. And so, and the other example, obviously, Vashy is one of his caucus members having gone down there recently, Jimil Giovanni.

There was a lot of commentary at the time, so if he gets between the crosshairs and whether it's intentional or not playing on Team Canada or there's some wedging there, that could, I think, undermine what I think his real objective is here.

What's your assessment, James, of the risk-benefit analysis here?

I think it's high on the upside of positive. You know, there is certainly a risk. There's a lot of averages, right? Whenever you do a lot of interviews and you talk a lot that, you know, for some people, one in four interviews, they botch and it goes completely sideways.

For some people, it's one in a million. Pierre is in the very high end in terms of effective communicator, so I'm not really worried on that front.

I wish I had those numbers, James. I wish I had those numbers. Come on.

Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, but I do think, I think, like, Pierre's message there on the social media post was bang on. I think it matters a lot for Canada.

Like the Donald Trump chapter of the Canada-US relationship is a chapter, and it will come to a close.

And the rupture that's happened, the Prime Minister talks about is true, but after rupture, it comes repair.

And the long arc of the relationship between Canada and the United States will be built by, you know, people like when Christian Clark was premiering British Columbia through the Pacific Northwest Economic Development Group,

through the Great Lakes initiative that exists through the governor's associations, meeting with big city mayors.

Like the spade work that happens and the leader of the Canada's official opposition who represents 40% of Canadians who vote in the last election, going to the United States.

And meeting with people is entirely positive. I hope it's done, frankly, in coordination with the embassy.

I hope that the Council's general networks in the United States are being supportive and helpful. I think that they will be.

After 9-11, it was made such that members of parliament can have access to the United States and have it paid for with some of their member of parliament travel points.

I hope that system is still in place because members of parliament working in cooperation and singing from the same song sheet in terms of Canada's diplomatic efforts and mission with the United States, we should be aligned.

And I think Pierre is aspiring to do that. And he wants to be seen to be doing that, to be seen to be more prime ministerial. That's the politics part of it. That's fine.

But I think in the long arc of the Canada U.S. relationship, thoughtful people and positions of leadership meeting with other people and positions of leadership building bridges.

You know, you build those relationships in good times so you can you can lever those those relationships in tough times and we're in some of those tough times. And I think Pierre is doing the right thing.

Christy, what do you think for the politics part of this is the strategy behind this trip?

Well, I first of all, I think it is fraught with some risk. There's no doubt. If there's any daylight between Karni and Pauliev in terms of the message that he's sending down there, that's going to be a problem.

I mean, the Americans are really expert and president Trump, especially so at exploiting any any light between the different sides in Canada.

So, you know, I'm hoping Janice Charette is going to be traveling with them and supporting him and making sure that everything goes smoothly because she's an old hand at these kinds of these kinds of things.

But having said that, I mean, I think there's I think there's upside in it for sure. I mean, I think if Pauliev can stay on the right track and not get himself into a into kind of a mess of contradictions, I think he can make some friends down there.

And it looks like an all hands on deck opportunity. I mean, imagine that the leader of the Republicans and the leader of the Democrats came to Canada to try and make the US case for something.

We would say, wow, these guys are really they've got it together. They're united. And I think there's a strong message here potentially for Canada and that.

I also think to Pauliev as a well-known a really well established as a conservative in terms of his views. He might find some folks that on whose level he can he can speak the same language and that might not necessarily be a bad thing for Canada.

I mean, at the end of the day, as long as we stay aligned in terms of what we're saying overall, it's always better to have more friends than fewer.

Last word to you on this Tony, your thoughts on the impetus for like strategic impetus for the trip and what the stakes are in your view.

Well, I think the strategy is do something different from a year ago, you know, a year ago.

Well, for since 2022, Pierre Pauliev did not visit a single place outside of Canada.

And he did that deliberately to illustrate that he was focused on the issues of Canada, not not focused on going around the world and meeting heads of state or what have you.

Well, yeah, but didn't didn't really help him at all that argument didn't really help him on April 28 last year.

So I think that they decided and he's decided know what going to do things a bit differently. I'm going to up my game a little bit.

I'm going to take some some risk go to foreign capitals and state capitals and talk about the issues, which he did very effectively in the UK and in Germany.

And I've heard feedback from people who are in those meetings who were very impressed by the leader of the opposition.

So I think that it is a calculated risk, but really as my fellow panelists have said, I mean, you know, you're running for the job of prime minister, people expect you to be comfortable in this environment around the globe, but particularly in the United States.

So I think it's the right decision at this particular time.

And I think that he can advance some arguments on behalf of Canada and therefore on behalf of the government.

And I think that does illustrate that he's willing to play ball on things that are of the national interest.

So I think the downside is very small. The upside is very large.

Okay, thanks everyone. Nice to see you on this Thursday.

As always, appreciate the discussion. Christy Clark recommended Chino James Moore in Tony Clement, our wonderful front bench.

We'll take a quick break and our takeaway is next.

Welcome back to power play. Our takeaway today comes from our interview with public safety minister Gary Anand is angry.

We asked him about a criticism level this week from the opposition that there are numerous officials associated with the Iranian regime, the IRGC, who are here in Canada, who should be deported.

Now there is a process that the government has based on a policy first enacted back in 2022, CBSA investigates its gifts referred to the refugee board.

One person has been deported since 2022. I put some of those challenges to the minister, but he defended the system. Have a listen.

I want Canadians to be assured. I want Iranian Canadians to be assured that every member who we deem to be in admissible based on the listing, based on the information that we have.

And I implore members of the community to provide that information. We will take decisive steps and that's exactly what we're doing now.

We have a deeper discussion with the minister about the number of accused officials associated with the IRGC here, as well as what the government is and isn't doing coming up on question period this Sunday at about 11 o'clock Eastern right across the network.

I do also want to let you know as it relates to the conflict in Iran, 400 million barrels of reserve oil has been released into the market.

But it did not have a depressive impact on the price of oil, closing in the case of the Brent crude benchmark 9% up to sit at $101 and 50 cents a barrel.

In the case of the US benchmark, that number is sitting at $96. I'll leave power play there. Thanks for watching. Your headlines are next.

I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind now. Got my own show.

So if you're tired of lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies available on all TSN platforms in the iHeartRadio app.