Crossing the floor in Canada: your elected representative just did it, three months after announcing he was leaving politics to spend time with family. Now he holds a brand new title, "special advisor to the Prime Minister," and nobody in public life can tell you what it means, what it does, or who's writing the check.

Mark Carney has spent his political career positioning above the partisan fray, and this week he's openly benefiting from what Lindsay Broadhead calls "the darker arts of politics." On the other side, Polievre had to publicly declare that a sitting Conservative MP "speaks for himself" after the MP parroted Republican talking points in Washington. Both situations point to the same pressure: leaders who look like they're losing grip of their caucuses at the exact moment the country needs message clarity most.

The institution is older than the argument. Parliamentary privilege exists so that elected MPs can't be fully controlled by the parties that got them elected, and any rule that changes that has to be debated by the very people it would constrain. The system protects itself. Voters do the rest.

Topics: crossing the floor Canada, Mark Carney, Conservative caucus, parliamentary privilege, Canadian politics 2026, Matt Jeneroux

GUEST: Jamie Ellerton | http://conaptus.com
GUEST: Lindsay Broadhead | http://broadheadcomms.ca

Originally aired on 2026-02-18