{"id":342221,"date":"2025-12-13T08:28:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T08:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/342221\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T08:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T08:28:13","slug":"ex-tory-mps-departure-caught-poilievre-flat-footed-on-eve-of-holiday-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/342221\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Tory MP\u2019s departure caught Poilievre flat-footed on eve of holiday break"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An Ontario MP\u2019s floor crossing appears to have caught Pierre Poilievre\u2019s team flat-footed and gives the Conservative leader no time to rally his troops until late January.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765485674_689_70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Markham-Unionville MP Michael Ma shocked Ottawa Thursday evening by announcing he would join Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s caucus, <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11575273\/conservatives-liberals-michael-ma-poilievre-mackinnon\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">bringing the Liberals to just one seat shy of a majority mandate.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The news came as a surprise to Poilievre and his team, who just the night before had welcomed Ma to the Conservative party\u2019s holiday get-together. With MPs now scattered across the country until late January, Poilievre is in the uncomfortable position of wondering if any more of his team will use the holiday break to test the waters for a potential jump.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe timing (of Ma\u2019s decision) was catastrophically bad for Conservatives, because you can\u2019t bring everyone in and (say), rah, rah, everything is OK,\u201d said one senior Conservative source, granted anonymity to discuss internal party politics.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the question a lot of MPs will be getting over the next few weeks is what\u2019s wrong with your leader, what\u2019s going on that your own caucus members, your own MPs don\u2019t like your leader?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765393751_868_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get the day&#8217;s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd a lot of MPs might start getting questions from their constituents (about) when are (they) going to do something?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The source predicted that Carney will have a majority by spring 2026 \u201cone way or another,\u201d meaning they expect at least one more Conservative MP to join the Liberal government.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Politics<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSounds like MPs are panicking and no one really knows what to do.\u2026 They are calling one another looking for direction and next steps and no one seems to have the answers. Everyone is just waiting for the next shoe to drop,\u201d a second Conservative source said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe real situation is what does (Poilievre) do when the next one crosses and the Liberals get a majority. How does he have a mandate to stay on?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Poilievre is down three MPs over the course of the fall session of the House of Commons \u2013 Ma and fellow former Conservative MP Chris d\u2019Entremont to the Liberals and Alberta MP Matt Jeneroux to a surprise early retirement.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11573855\/environment-canada-winter-outlook\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765614493_625_Canada-winter-forecast-2025-26.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tEnvironment Canada releases winter outlook. Time to get the snow pants out?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11575740\/athabasca-hockey-team-bus-crash\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765614493_502_ATHABASCA-BUS-CRASH.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tBus carrying youth hockey team crashes north of Edmonton, 2 in hospital\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jeneroux, a 44-year-old MP representing a safe Conservative seat in Edmonton, was widely reported to be in talks to join the Liberal government before announcing his retirement from federal politics. Since he announced his decision to retire, he has missed multiple key votes in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>A third source close to Poilievre downplayed Ma\u2019s departure on Friday, saying the move was \u201cweird.\u201d Ma\u2019s Markham-Unionville riding used to be solidly Liberal when represented by former MP John McCallum, but has changed hands between the Conservatives and Liberals in recent elections.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt just doesn\u2019t make sense,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe polls are strong, the polls are good, Carney is not exactly doing gangbusters.\u2026 This is just a weird situation, I don\u2019t know what to say.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The source said they were not sure what Poilievre could\u2019ve done differently to keep Ma in the fold. Another source agreed \u2013 but for different reasons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re right, there\u2019s nothing Pierre could do to stop the bleeding other than leave,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Ontario MP\u2019s floor crossing appears to have caught Pierre Poilievre\u2019s team flat-footed and gives the Conservative leader&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,126155,43,44,18277,714,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-342221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-conservative-party","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pierre-poilievre","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}