Orange Is The New Black Eye For Canada

New Democrats in disarray!

Paper gifts are traditional for a one-year anniversary, and Mark Carney was handed a good one for his first year as prime minister of Canada after yet another member of Parliament signed the paperwork to swap parties.

Three Conservative MPs already gave early Christmas prezzies to the Liberals, and the guy is now just two seats shy of the 172 needed to form a majority government after the first defection from the commie New Democratic Party.

Christmas Comes Early For Mark Carney

Although he might regret not looking the gift horse in the mouth as it comes with an awkward paper trail.

Arctic woman Lori Idlout finds herself in the hot seat just one week after crossing the floor from what’s left of Team Orange — now just six members still standing in the House of Commons — when it came out she expensed purchases from her small business to taxpayers. Idlout, who owns an art gallery specializing in Inuit carvings, asked for reimbrursement for a total of $1,756 for “gifts given as a matter of protocol” last year. Two $150 sales in January, another $76 in June, and $1,380 two months later caught the CBC’s attention.

She’s since repaid it and claims the claims “were submitted in error” but it’s not a good look, especially since the final one was so much higher. Tory ethics critic Michael Barrett is having none of it with the Nunavut MP’s excuse (sorry not sorry) and called her out in the House of Commons.

“Ms. Idlout has — now that she’s been caught — admitted to doing what every member of Parliament knows or ought to know they can’t do,” he told the audience. “Who did she give these gifts to, right at the time of a federal election, where she won her district by a couple of a dozen votes?”

It’s a fair question, especially as she only beat Liberal opponent Kilikvak Kabloona by 41 votes in the vast northern territory — roughly the size of Mexico but with the population of a small midwestern city — that’s suddenly strategically important due to all the melting and warmongering. At least she seems in favor of paying artists.

But it’s a bit rich coming from a guy whose boss, Pierre Poilievre, was politely allowed to stay in a taxpayer-funded Ottawa mansion as leader of the Official Opposition for several months despite hilariously losing his own seat in last year’s election.

It’s unlikely Idlout will bow out over this, and Big Daddy Carney should still have an easy path to a majority with three federal by-elections coming up. If unfamiliar with how Canada’s system works, it’s not like in the US where the only a choice is between the Democrats and Nazis every four years. Along with the Liberals, Conservatives, and NDP, there’s also 22 resentful Bloc Québécois MPs and even a Greenie who need to sort of all work together to get anything done. Minority governments only last as long as everyone agrees to put up with them and fall whenever the party with the most seats fails a motion of non-confidence, which is basically everyone teaming up to tell them to fuck off and put things up to another election. Ideally ones without well-funded pedophiles in the running.

Nobody in Canada wants another one right now. The vibe is all-hands-on-deck and that it’s probably for the best if Captain Carney is given room to navigate at a time when Murica is wilding out and eyeballing our oil fields. The two available ridings in Ontario are expected to easily go Liberal again April 13 after party stalwarts Chrystia Freeland and Bill Blair jumped ship to pursue other opportunities. The fun one is the rematch in Quebec between Tatiana Auguste — a Gen Z Haitian immigrant who won the Montreal suburb of Terrebonne by ONE vote for the Libs last year — and the Bloc’s incumbent Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné after the Supreme Court called for a do-over.

Two out of three would do it for Carney but a clean sweep would be the gift of giving Liberal MPs the option to call in sick when important stuff is being voted on in Ottawa.

[CBC / City News / Wonketeers on Bluesky]