Canadian Conservatives Collapse! Talking the Pope and Catholicism (with Kevin Ryan)

Late last night, the news finally came in: the Liberal Party of Canada pulled off the upset and held onto parliamentary power. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t dominant. But they survived — and a few months ago, that seemed almost impossible. They had everything working against them: more than a decade in power, a deeply unpopular former prime minister they had to jettison, and an electorate that looked ready for change. Yet when the votes were counted, the Liberals were still standing.

And you can’t tell this story without talking about Donald Trump. Trump has been a thorn in Canada’s side since his first term — publicly antagonizing Justin Trudeau, calling Canada the "51st state," and slapping brutal tariffs on Canadian goods. That lingering resentment became part of the political terrain in Canada. The Liberal candidate, Mark Carney, didn’t just have to run against Peter Poilievre and the Conservative Party — he got to run against the memory of Trump, and against the uncertainty that conservatives couldn't fully distance themselves from.

Poilievre never figured out how to adapt. He spent too much time running a traditional opposition campaign and not enough time answering the deeper question a lot of Canadian voters were asking: would a Conservative government just invite more chaos with Trump? Carney seized on that. He didn’t have to make it the centerpiece of his campaign, but it was always there in the background. Steady hand versus risk. Familiarity versus volatility.

And while some Conservatives are already spinning this as a "moral victory" because of how tight the race was, that’s not how elections work. A win is a win. In a parliamentary system, survival is everything. The Liberals get to control the agenda, pick the cabinet, and frame the narrative going into the next few years. That’s not moral victory — that’s real, tangible power. And for a party that looked like it was about to lose everything, it’s a remarkable political save.

Now, the Liberals may still need a coalition with the NDP to govern effectively. It’s razor-thin. But that’s a separate conversation. The scoreboard is the scoreboard. And right now, the score says the Liberals survived. Trump’s shadow loomed large over this race — and in the end, it helped save the very people he’s spent years antagonizing.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:28 - WHCA Substack Party

00:11:27 - Interview with Kevin Ryan

00:28:46 - Update

00:29:08 - Canadian Election Results

00:31:38 - Big Beautiful Bill’s July 4th Deadline

00:35:46 - Interview with Kevin Ryan, con’t

00:57:28 - Wrap-up

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