On floor crossers, EV mandates, projects of national interest and Pierre pushes back...

Plus, BLill on Northern Perspective and more.

In the last 24 hours I’ve published a piece in the Sun on the turmoil inside the Liberal Party, including Carney needing to keep the EV mandate in place and and another on the real story behind Chris d’Entremont’s floor crossing. Neither of them are being followed up on that I can see by other media outlets and yet I can assure you that if the party names were reversed then every bureau on the Hill would be chasing these stories.

Instead, the gallery remains embarrassed that two days in a row I have scooped them from downtown Toronto without having spent time in Ottawa in months.

The reality is that Carney is facing real problems within his caucus. That doesn’t mean Poilievre isn’t, I’ve never claimed otherwise, but both major parties have their rifts and divides. As for d’Entremont and the floor crossing, the MSM has decided to take this man who stabbed his own party in the back at face value and not question anything about his story.

What I did was speak to people far and wide, including some not on good terms with the Poilievre inner circle - always speak to outsiders - and they all tell the same story about d’Entremont.

The Liberals will eventually regret recruiting him.

About those projects of national interest…

On Wednesday I both wrote about and recorded a video about the new list of projects of national interest. You can read the column here, which includes thoughts from the Ontario and Alberta governments and you can watch the video below.

Bottom line, this isn’t nearly as ambitious as we need to be to deal with the threat to our economy.

Pierre pushes back…

The MSM would really like Pierre to roll over on this issue of the floor crossing, show his belly and be submissive to them the way Mark Carney is when he meets Donald Trump. I’ve heard some outrage today that he wouldn’t do that an instead was blunt with them and pushed back.

Perhaps all those media folks upset at Poilievre, missed Carney being a dismissive and sexist ass to Amber Kanwar in his Canadian Club appearance last Friday.

Anyway, Poilievre was asked about losing d’Entremont, the failed speaker candidate, and wasn’t going to do what the media wanted.

Please give the two columns that I’ve written on this a read, the one on Carney’s caucus problems and the one on the backstory about Chris d’Entremont.

Time for a change at the LCBO…

If you aren’t in Ontario, maybe you don’t care about the LCBO, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, but you should because it is a massive government bureaucracy and it is badly run. Last week in the Ontario Fall Economic Statement, it was revealed that the LCBO would pay a dividend to the Province of Ontario of less than $2 billion.

Most of the immediate analysis said this was due to Ontario joining the modern world in at least allowing beer and wine in convenience stores, big box stores and more grocery stores than previously allowed. The reality is that the fall in the dividend is happening for several reasons, but not the expansion of alcohol sales, and that bad management is at the heart of this.

Would it shock you to find out that for years the LCBO has given a smaller dividend per capita than their counterparts in B.C., Quebec and Alberta?

Both Quebec and B.C. have hybrid public/private systems for alcohol sales as Ontario now does, but Alberta has been fully private for retail for more than 30 years. Still, these other jurisdictions, the most comparable that Ontario has, return a greater payment per capita.

At that point, it’s got to be bad management. Hopefully, there is a change in management soon and I hear one is coming in the New Year.

Appearing on Northern Perspective…

Had a chance to chat with Ryan Davies from Northern Perspective on Monday about the budget, about the floor crossing and about the insanity on Parliament Hill. Always great to chat with Ryan, and Tanya when she is there, hop you enjoy the chat.