Brantford—Brant South

In Ontario, some polls put Liberal support above fifty percent.

A coming by-election in Brantford-Brant South is already being read as a difficult hold for the Conservatives under these conditions.

By-election losses and defections have added to the sense of drift.

The structural problem is the comparison voters are making.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is facing criticism from within his own party after appointing a candidate to run in an upcoming by-election in southern Ontario instead of holding a nomination contest.

He picked Brantford Mayor Kevin Davis to carry the Tory banner for Brantford-Brant South after MP Larry Brock stepped down Friday to return to work as a Crown prosecutor.

The move prompted Brock and another former MP to leave their seats at a rally where the appointment announcement was made because they both supported another candidate's bid to get the nomination.

That is The World This Hour.

You know, over time, governments make mistakes, but that's not a great strategy for an opposition party.

Many of them are looking at this Brantford-Brant South by-election that has yet to be called, where Larry Brock, um, is leaving as the Conservative MP, and a lot of them are wondering whether that's not the equivalent to the Liberals' St. Paul's, uh, by-election-

Mm-hmm

... that they lost that sort of started the giant snowball that, that led to Justin Trudeau leaving.

At least I, like, I don't blame him for that element of it.

But if they lose Brantford-Brant South, or if it is really competitive, like, then I think he's truly in trouble.

Because what that tells you is a whole bunch of other, like, like, accessible seats for the Conservatives, they'll be called accessible, are in trouble, and that's when caucus will get really riled.

So that's the thing that I'm watching as an inflection point, and I don't think there's a lot of political space f- for the opposition leader right now to sort of insert themselves into the national discussion.

I don't think that these by-elections right now are the beginning of the end for Mr. Poilievre.

Uh, I do think I'm gonna be watching the Brantford-Brant, uh, Six Nations by-election.

Larry Brock-

Yeah

After the [laughs] after w- Canada hopefully wins the trade war, people will say, "You know what? Okay, now it's time to move on, and, and now it's time to win the peace.

Who's gonna address affordability? Who's gonna address housing? Who's gonna address all these other challenges that we have?"

I agree with all of you that Brantford-Brant South will be a key by-election.

Larry Brock won it by 11 points in the last federal election.