OTTAWA – Following three recent floor crossings to the Liberals, the Conservative Party has lost a fourth MP after Alberta MP Pierre Poilievre announced that he would be crossing the floor to join Mark Carney’s Liberals.
Poilievre, Member for Battle River—Crowfoot and current leader of the Conservative Party, said that the move was a long time coming.
“It turns out Prime Minister Carney and I actually see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, like being important and winning,” said Poilievre.
“After a long and productive conversation, we realized that beneath our partisan differences, we shared a passion for centralizing the power of the PMO, sidelining MPs who speak against us, and building a strong majority so that we don’t have to work with other parties,” said Poilievre.
“Poilievre will make a strong addition to the Liberal bench,” said Prime Minister Carney to the parliamentary press. “Underneath our differences, we share a deep common ground in our core values and beliefs. Values like… um… uhhhhh….” Carney trailed off.
As for his motivations for leaving the Conservative Party, Poilievre blamed the toxic leadership culture, saying it felt like a “sinking ship”.
“We all knew it wasn’t a matter of if but a matter of when another MP would cross the floor, so I figured why not me? For years I’ve promised Canadians a strong, stable, majority, and now I’m going to give it to them.”
Carney’s office said that Poilievre will work in a mostly behind-closed-doors role, privately advising Prime Minister Carney on issues like how to speak to Canadians with a household income under 400k, how to properly pronounce the names of guns he’s banning, or how to turn Liberal policies into pithy three syllable slogans.
In Poilievre’s Alberta riding, constituents reacted to the news of their MP crossing the floor. “Who?” said Stan McNally, a resident of Camrose.
Back at Conservative HQ, party leadership expressed optimism at Poilievre’s departure. “FINALLY,” said one conservative party insider. “We voted him back in as leader mostly so that he would just stop talking, not because we wanted to. Now with him gone, we might actually have a real chance at winning an election!”
At press time, Poilievre announced he would be crossing the floor from the Liberals to the NDP, who at this point would do anything for a leader consistently able to come in second.
