CTV Question Period with Vassy Kapelos Podcast · CTV News

CTV QP Podcast #513: Can Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre confirm that more MPs won’t leave?

December 21, 2025·46 min·5 clips

Question Period opens on Sunday, December 21st with the Conservative leader facing pressure over caucus defections. The main interview asks Pierre Palliev whether he can rule out more MPs leaving. Capellos frames the issue around leadership and accountability. Palliev rejects the idea that floor crossing should count as legitimate political expression. He calls it undemocratic and ties it to dirty backroom deals. The exchange keeps the leadership question front and center. It also keeps coming back to the practical strain on a party that looks visibly rattled. From there, the program widens into a year-end political roundup. The show points back to the fall of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It also marks the rise of Liberal leader Mark Kearney. The tone shifts from immediate party drama to a broader look at how Canadian politics changed over the year. The episode treats 2025 as a year that moved fast and never really settled down. Trade tensions with the United States are part of that picture. So is the larger debate over affordability and the cost of living. In the Palliev segment, the interview presses on taxes, deficits, carbon pricing, and the cost of government. The framing asks whether conservative promises about lower costs can actually lead to cheaper food, housing, and energy. Palliev argues that government is the main driver of higher prices. He links inflation to taxes, deficits, and restrictions on resource development. The host pushes back by testing whether removing one policy would really deliver the savings promised. That back-and-forth gives the conversation its shape. It is less about slogans than about whether the arithmetic holds up. The program then shifts to a closing stretch built around year-end reflection and gratitude. The Sunday Strategy Session and a special edition of The Scrum help frame the political season as one that was anything but quiet. The final minutes thank the production team and the audience before the show signs off for the year. The episode stays focused on accountability, but it also leaves room for the mood of a political calendar closing under pressure.

As heard by us

A brisk political hour that keeps circling back to power, defections, and what comes next.

Sunday Question Period opens with Pierre Poilievre under pressure, and that pressure is the point: caucus defections and a coming leadership review hang over every exchange. The interview is the sharpest part of the hour.

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Why you'd press play

You want a straight read on the opposition leader while his caucus starts to fray.

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