Poilievre's contrite moment before caucus and the media narrative...

Plus, is there really an early election coming?

Pierre Poilievre stood before his caucus Wednesday morning and was contrite. The Conservative leader has caused himself and his party headaches since his comments about Justin Trudeau and the RCMP on the Northern Perspective podcast last week.

Will it be enough?

Time will tell but his Conservative MPs who are upset will have forgiven him long before the media will. The stories about Conservative MPs or supporters being upset have not abated and hours before Poilievre did his mea culpa, Radio-Canada, the French wing of CBC had a story with MPs sniping at Poilievre.

Of course, none of them were on the record.

Later in the day, the rumour mill started that at least one Conservative MP, most likely a Quebec MP, would cross the floor by the end of the day. I’ll tell you from experience that when rumours start on Parliament Hill, they can take on a life of their own.

Will someone cross the floor?

Perhaps, and I’ve been given names of the potential floor crossers by Liberals, but none of them have done it so far.

We wait.

It’s all part of crafting a larger narrative…

If you only consumed legacy media, you might think the Conservative Party was falling apart, that the Conservatives were falling in the polls and that fundraising had dried up. None of that is true no matter how often they tell you it is while the facts tell a different story.

We Poilievre’s comments helpful with swing voters? Absolutely not, and while he’s not focussed on them yet, he will need to be one day so he needs to be more careful.

As I’ve stated though, Poilievre was right on the RCMP dropping the ball on SNC-Lavalin and someone should have been charged with obstruction of justice in that case.

But none of this means the Conservatives are falling apart at the seams.

Will you get people grumbling, absolutely. Will some of them turn to the media as anonymous sources, considering many turned to me months ago, sure, it’s going to happen.

I also have my own anonymous sources telling me there is no one in caucus organizing against Poilievre. Speaking to veterans of the Scheer and O’Toole palace coups, they say this is a very different feel.

People are tired, they are tired of losing, but they aren’t looking to replace Poilievre. That’s not just because there is no one waiting in the wings, they genuinely want to give him a second chance.

Given the latest Abacus poll, I’d say he’s doing okay. That poll would show a minority government if an election were held today, one that could go Liberal or Conservative.

Is a snap election coming…

I’ve been covering minority Parliaments since Paul Martin was PM, that’s a long time ago. So when there is chatter about the government potentially falling over the budget vote, I tend to be pretty immune to the panic that can induce in some people.

On Tuesday, Liberal House Leader Steve McKinnon set tongues wagging that the government’s budget may not pass which of course would lead to an election.

“When I see opposition parties ruling out the possibility of voting for the budget, that’s starting to worry me,” McKinnon said.

Well, let’s be clear, it is up to the government to present a budget that the majority of MPs can vote for. The Liberals have 169 MPs, one of them serves as Speaker and will be in the Speaker’s chair for that important vote.

That means the Liberals, being four seats short of a majority, need four votes - less if people are away - but effectively they need members from one of the other parties to vote with them. They can count on Elizabeth May who acts like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Liberal Party to vote with them meaning they still need three more votes.

Obviously, barring some of that floor crossing discussed above, the easiest route for the Liberals is to get some or all of the NDP to either vote with them or be absent for the vote.

The only way we end up in an election over this budget is if the Liberals decide they want one to try and get a majority. Given that Carney won the last election saying he could deal with Trump and hasn’t done that yet, I’d warn against going early.

There is one more way we could end up in an election, if they are incompetent and can’t count votes properly. I highly doubt that would happen, there are highly skilled Parliamentarians and strategist on the team in Ottawa.

Bottom line, expect horse trading, not a trip to the polls.