If, as seems likely, Edmonton Riverbend MP Matt Jeneroux’s announcement he’s departing federal politics next spring is a harbinger of a leadership crisis within the Conservative Party of Canada, the circumstances have a feeling of déjà vu.
After all, Jeneroux has done this kind of thing before, back when he was a one-term Progressive Conservative member of the Alberta Legislative Assembly for Edmonton-South West.
Devoted students of Alberta politics will recall that in March 2014, as the PC Caucus in the Legislature grew increasingly panicky about Premier Alison Redford’s plummeting popularity, Jeneroux let it be known publicly he was pondering sitting as an Independent.
Renewable energy minister Donna Kennedy-Glans resigned on St. Patrick’s Day over Redford’s political problems; the same day Jeneroux got ink and airtime for publicly musing about his next moves.
“There have definitely been things that have concerned me in the last little while with the premier’s leadership and it’s stuff that I needed a lot of answers to and each caucus meeting I get a few more answers as we go along,” he told the CBC. “It’s still up in the air for me in terms of what I’m willing to do.”
With the PCs mired in scandals about the premier’s use of government aircraft and excessive travel expenses, and with plans to build a private “Sky Palace” apartment for the premier atop a government building in Edmonton starting to leak, a group of PC MLAs was beavering away at pushing Redford out the exit.
It may seem quaint now considering what’s happened in Alberta since the United Conservative Party came to power in 2019 that Redford’s political sins would have warranted discipline, let alone dismissal, or that she would have had a minister of renewable energy, but that was then and this is now.
Redford quit on March 19, two days after Jeneroux’s public musings, but everyone understood she’d been fired by her own caucus.
Fast forward to last week, with rumours buzzing around Edmonton that Jeneroux – who was defeated by New Democrat Thomas Dang in the May 2015 provincial election but was elected MP for Edmonton Riverbend in the October federal election that year – was about to cross the floor to join Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Caucus.
Jeneroux, now in his mid-40s, was thought to be one of several Conservative MPs troubled by the MAGA-influenced approach to politics taken by federal party Leader Pierre Poilievre.
With Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont already having crossed to the Liberals, that would have edged the governing party to only one seat away from a majority in the House of Commons. Surely that would have caused many heads in the federal Conservatives’ perpetually aggrieved Alberta Caucus to explode.
If true, though, something happened to change Jeneroux’s mind at the last minute.
On Thursday, he announced in a letter published on social media that he would be resigning his seat in the House of Commons. “For those who have reached out, I am deeply grateful for your friendship and concern,” the letter began. “However, I ask that you please not attempt to contact my family during this time.”
It concluded: “I hope to have the opportunity to address the House one final time in the future. For now, my focus must turn entirely to my family and to the responsibilities that come with that.”
So what’s with that?
A senior producer in CTV’s Ottawa Bureau immediately tweeted: “Sources tell CTV News that Jeneroux had conversations with senior staffers from Carney’s office as recently as Wednesday after which the impression was that Jeneroux would be crossing the floor.”
“Amid the speculation, a source close to Jeneroux tells CTV News that Conservative Party officials made it known to him that there would be consequences if he did floor cross,” Stephanie Ha’s tweet continued.
Others posted darker speculation about the nature of those consequences on social media.
Later Thursday evening, Jeneroux published a message on social media saying, “I want to be clear that there was no coercion involved in my decision to resign.”
“Since my resignation this evening, I had a great conversation with Pierre Poilievre, who wished me all the best, as I do him,” that message said in part. “To reiterate, this long standing decision reflects my desire to spend more time with my family. My exact date of departure will be determined at a later day but likely this spring.”
Poilievre published some kind words about Jeneroux as well.
Now, let’s cast our minds back to a more recent floor crossing, when Toronto-area Liberal MP Leona Alleslev crossed the floor in of the House of Commons in 2018 to join the Conservatives.
The Conservative Leader of the day, Andrew Scheer, lauded her courage and accomplishments.
“As a member of the Conservative team, Leona’s perspective and expertise will be extremely valuable,” Scheer enthused in a news conference announcing the defection of the MP for Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill. “We saw right away that here was an outstanding individual with an impressive background in the military and in the private sector, and we’re just thrilled to have her.”
The Liberals, naturally, were not happy, but prime minister Justin Trudeau’s response was graceful. “I wish her the best in her new choices, and you know, that’s something that happens from time to time in politics,” Trudeau told an interviewer. “It’s not great but it’s also not the be all and end all.”
The Conservative response was not so kindly on Tuesday, though, when d’Entremont made the same trip in reverse. Scheer, now Conservative House leader, accused the Acadie-Annapolis MP of merely acting on “personal grievances.”
“He’s going to have to explain to all the people that he looked in the eye, took their donations, put signs on their lawns, and then explain why he betrayed them just a few months later,” Scheer said.
Another Conservative MP publicly called him a coward, which doesn’t seem quite like the right characterization whatever you might make of floor crossing. But then, Poilievre is the Antitrudeau, and the Conservatives are his party, at least for the time being.
A certain amount of harsh commentary about floor crossers is inevitable, one supposes. I’m sure Bowmanville-Oshawa North MP Jamil Jivani, who called d’Entremont “an idiot,” is normally a really nice guy. His close personal friend, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, seems to think so.
Nova Scotia RCMP said they were also investigating online threats made against d’Entremont. Presumably Jeneroux’s decision saved him from that kind of trouble, at least.
This, of course, is one reason why most floor crossers only cross the floor once.
As the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously observed after doing it a second time, “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.”
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