We need to go now. We can’t afford to wait for a referendum vote.

YakkStack from yesterday:

https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=447842&post_id=190784236&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=jdw0f&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozMjU2MDcxOSwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTkwNzg0MjM2LCJpYXQiOjE3NzMzNTk2NTAsImV4cCI6MTc3NTk1MTY1MCwiaXNzIjoicHViLTQ0Nzg0MiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.ZJKb2x5Rqefqjm871AqRpm867KWZr0BBWk2mRoqQ2XI

Hunker down friends and pour yourself a stiff beverage...this is a long one.

When a politician crosses the floor, the official story is always the same. Growth. Reflection. A sincere reassessment of values. A desire to better serve constituents from a different seat.

And sometimes - I mean very occasionally - that’s even true.

However…this isn’t one of those times.

Lori Idlout’s floor crossing from the NDP to the Liberals on March 10 is one of the most nakedly self-interested political moves this country has seen in years. And that is saying something in a city where self-interest is basically the official sport.

To understand why, you have to look at everything she had to gain. Because when you lay it all out together, the picture isn’t complicated at all.

It’s actually pretty straightforward.

Let’s start with the money.

On January 30, 2026 - six weeks before her floor crossing - Ottawa announced a $480 million housing partnership with Nunavut. 750 homes. Roughly $640,000 per unit. Federal contribution of $250 million through Build Canada Homes. The contracts for 725 of those 750 homes have not been publicly disclosed. As in...Ottawa announced the money, named almost nobody who builds the houses and moved on.

Now...

Idlout spent years in opposition hammering the Liberals for not building enough homes in Nunavut. That was her brand. Her file. Her hill. She told CBC in January she “can’t” cross the floor.

Six weeks after the money landed, before the ink on the cheque even dried…she could.

Idlout’s husband is Allan Mullin.

Allan Mullin is the registered contact for Nunavut Holdings Inc. - an active Iqaluit construction company listed in the Government of Nunavut’s official NNI business registry. Construction, renovation, heavy equipment rental, property management, building materials supply.

Which is exactly the kind of company that gets called when Ottawa needs 725 homes built across the territory.

The contracts haven’t been named.

However…the MP who advocated loudest for the money just joined the government releasing it.

Her husband runs the construction company.

I’ll leave that right there and let you sit with it for a second.

NOW... the housing angle is only the first layer.

Because Idlout wasn’t just carrying personal financial exposure into this floor crossing.

She was carrying something far more politically dangerous.

In December 2024, her 27-year-old son Robin Idlout was arrested in Winnipeg and charged with possession of and accessing child pornography following a three-year joint investigation by the Nunavut RCMP Specialized Investigative Team and Winnipeg Police Service ICE unit into five internet child exploitation incidents believed to have occurred in Iqaluit.

These are among the most serious criminal charges imaginable. They are politically toxic for anyone connected to the accused - even a parent with no involvement in the alleged crimes. And they create something every political operative in Ottawa understands immediately.

Vulnerability.

An MP facing this kind of family exposure has fewer options than most, especially since we’ve seen MPs quit over the cost of a glass of orange juice…google that if your memory doesn’t go back far enough.

The legacy media in this country does not treat all politicians equally - and an MP sitting in the Liberal caucus, helpful to the government’s survival, generates a very different media environment than an opposition MP the government would rather see gone. Political goodwill from the governing party doesn’t make the charges disappear. But it absolutely shapes how loudly the story gets told, how often it gets revisited and how much oxygen the coverage receives.

Sitting on the government benches is worth something when your family is in legal jeopardy. Everyone in Ottawa knows this even if nobody says it out loud.

Aaaaaand...then there is the man signing the cheques himself.

Carney held $6.8 million USD in Brookfield Asset Management stock options as of December 31, 2024 - options on 409,300 shares expiring in 2033 and 2034. He also holds over 41,000 Brookfield deferred share units worth north of $3 million. Instruments so locked they cannot simply be sold. His total Brookfield exposure covers over half a million shares in various forms.

Yes, there is a blind trust.

Yes, there is a conflict of interest screen covering 103 Brookfield entities.

Democracy Watch called both of them “loophole-filled, unethical smokescreens.”

And the PMO has refused to confirm whether those options were exercised before the trust was created. A Brookfield executive was hauled before the House ethics committee. The questions have not gone away because the answers have not been provided.

A Prime Minister sitting on nearly $10 million in Brookfield instruments - a company that moves billions through infrastructure, real estate and housing contracts - is signing $250 million federal housing deals while his office insists there is no conflict of interest.

Sure. No conflict. Carry on.

Recapping:

$480 million Nunavut housing announced January 30.
Contractors for 725 of 750 homes not disclosed.
Idlout’s husband runs active Iqaluit construction company Nunavut Holdings Inc. Idlout crosses the floor six weeks later.
Son facing child exploitation charges - politically radioactive without government cover. Carney holds $6.8 million USD in Brookfield options.
PMO won’t confirm if options were exercised.
Liberals now at 170 seats - two from a majority.
While a byelection in Liberal Safe ridings is planned for the spring.
Every single one of those factors points in the same direction.

This is what skin in the game actually looks like in Canadian politics.

Not citizens with a stake in their country’s future. Politicians whose housing contracts, political careers and family exposure all run through the same party machine - and who make the only rational calculation available to them when the stakes get high enough.

Now let’s talk about who is paying for all of it.

Alberta sends roughly $20,000 per family per year east through the equalization formula. Since 2007 our net contribution to federal finances totals $244.6 billion.

We receive zero equalization in return. We have never received equalization.

We fund the program that redistributes our wealth to provinces that then elect governments that vote against our pipelines, our energy industry and our economic future.

Alberta didn’t vote for Carney.

Alberta didn’t vote for this majority being assembled one floor crossing at a time, no Canadian actually did.

Alberta didn’t vote to fund $480 million in Nunavut housing contracts while 24,000 Canadians died on healthcare waitlists and 6 million of our own people cannot find a family doctor.

Alberta paid for it anyway. We always do.

They don’t love Alberta.

They love cashing our cheques.

They love our oil revenues propping up the equalization formula that funds the housing deals that buy the floor crossings that build the majorities that pass the anti-energy legislation that kills our industry so they can come back next election and tell us to be grateful we’re still part of Canada.

The Liberals have always been anti-oil and anti-Alberta. That is the policy. Not an accident. Not an oversight. A deliberate and consistent arrangement where Alberta generates the wealth and central Canada decides how it gets spent.

At some point the question stops being whether we can afford to leave...

...and starts being whether we can afford to stay.