Althea Raj

I'm more concerned, if I can be so blunt, about the prime minister not showing up to question period than us not having enough access to the PM directly.

Well, one of the things that the former prime minister got a lot of kudos for was the advisory council that he had appointed in a way of expanding the networks of contact that the government had access to, the different inputs that they would get, and basically like tripling their reach.

And I think that that is one thing that kind of,

And Prime Minister Carney has been criticized for.

So I think that's a recognition that, you know, this this work before, let's do it again.

I also think that when you have more people in the tent, you're less likely to get criticized by those people.

So it's smart politics, too.

Like I always.

wholeheartedly expect that there will be conservatives, well-known conservatives on the list that is named today.

We saw in the past, you know, there were former premiers on that list.

There were people of different political stripes.

And so you really do get the sense that, you know, this is...

a national unity effort, that this is a pan-Canadian effort.

And that is what Prime Minister Carney has tried to tell Canadians, not just in the breadth of floor crossers he has welcomed to his caucus, but also in his messaging.

So I think it fits in that prism.

I also think it's a way of kind of

insulating themselves against the criticism that they have received that not much is actually happening on that front, which they have, to Rob's point, I think, actually kind of acknowledged.

Like last week we had Dominique Leblanc, the point person for the government on this file, basically suggest that

Well, there's like conversations are happening and, you know, that the door is open and we're still talking.

But yes, clearly nothing seems to be moving in the same way.